Over several years, photographer Rebecca Marr and poet Valerie Gillies have cultivated a deep, shared engagement with the world of grasses. Through distinct but complementary practices, they have explored this often-overlooked subject with care and curiosity. Their dialogue - carried out in different regions of Scotland - now culminates in When the Grass Dances, a new book of poetry and photography, and a collaborative exhibition, Buss o Gress / Tuft of Grass, which opens on Saturday 9th August at the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness. 

“The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time – the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer.”