Carrier: A carrier is a space to gather things within. My curatorial practice thinks of the carrier as a feminist and ethical curatorial strategy. My study on carriers is indebted to Ursula Le Guin's The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.

Slow glass as a curatorial practice is a space that carries and gathers stories, so too in fact are slow glass as a material - when re-claimed from macho science-fiction - and the Slow Glass publication series. And not forgetting, this very website.

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Diffraction: Diffraction describes the phenomena that occurs when a wave encounters an obstacle or an opening. When light, sound or waters diffracts it bends or spreads. As diffraction occurs so-called interference patterns are observed, and appear as overlapping waves.

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Enfold: I use the term enfold to denote gathering.

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Entangled/ Entanglements: To entangle is similar to intertwining. If I say - time is made up of entanglements, I mean - time is tangled, a jumble of things happening simultaneously that cannot be separated. Karen Barad uses entanglements for a similar purpose.

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In her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin describes extrapolation as the practice of taking a contemporary trend, extracting and purifying the trend, and ultimately, projecting it into the future.

There are aspects of extrapolation that echoes appropriation in contemporary art: ‘The act of using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original.’

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Reading diffractively: Scholar Karen Barad created the methodology of reading diffractively. This is a multi-disciplinary practice of reading insights through one another. This process rejects reading singular sets of theory. For example, Karen Barad’s study crosses the boundaries of feminist and queer study, and physics.

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To intra-act: Karen Barad re-frames the term interact as intra-act, providing a new way to think about agency. Interaction assumes that two entities that meet are completely separate, existing outside of one another’s influence. Intra-action, however, theorises that we are entangled in a collaborative process of becoming-a constant motion of ‘exchanging […] influencing and working inseparably’(1).

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Macho: I use this term interchangeably with patriarchal to denote masculine orientated practices, that are often centred on domination and erasure of any voices but the straight, white male.

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Politics of Citation: The Politics of Citation is a feminist strategy put forward by Sara Ahmed. This theory is highlights the centring of the white male in western referencing. This strategy encourages us to think deeply about who we are are citing and the exclusions within our research.

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Quantum (mechanics): Quantum mechanics is a theory in physics that describes the physical properties of nature at the smallest scale of our universe - subatomic atoms. Quantum mechanics differs from classical understandings of physics which deal with the macroscopic.

Both theories differ in how they approach experiments. Quantum physics describes, whereas classical physics predicts.

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Quantum time: In quantum physics time is not constricted by linearity and temporal borders - unlike in classical understandings of physics. The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin deals with temporal physics, seeing the main character attempt to tie both quantum understandings and classical understandings of time together.

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To re-turn: Re-turning is the act of turning over and over again. To re-turn is not to go in a linear direction backwards, but to burrow through and breathe life into the present. To re-turn is to constantly sediment the past upon the now. Re-turn is at odds with return, which denotes going backwards to a place or time.

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Reflection: Reflection is the adrupt bouncing of light off an object. To reflect often produces a mirror image of the same. A number of feminist scholars think of reflection, and mirroring, as a patriarchal practice. To reflect the same is to neglect to think deeply about the world in which we live.

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Refraction: Refraction is the slowing of light as it passes through one material to another of different density. This slowing is visually denoted in the bending of light. The result of light’s refraction is dispersion - the separation of white light into different wavelengths.

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Slow glass: Slow glass is a material that appears in Bob Shaw's short science-fiction story Light of Other Days and later in his novel Other Days Other Eyes. Slow glass is a material that absorbs light within its atomic structure. When the light is released it appears as fragments of a past time and place.

Slow Glass is the name of a publication series founded in August 2020.

Slow glass is also the name of a curatorial method.

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Thought Experiment: Ursula Le Guin provides the thought-experiment as a feminist alternative to extrapolation. The thought-experiment is a method used by quantum physists to describe reality.

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Tool: A tool is an object which appears to have agency, but ultimately is a passive object as it is solely controlled by man, used to achieve his aim of destruction. Slow glass is used as a tool by Bob Shaw, however re-claimed, it becomes a carrier, following Ursula Le Guin's The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. To find a definition for carrier, scroll to the very top of this page.