Sensory segmentation around and with art monuments in rural landscapes: Towards a sensory heritage sensitive rural spatial justice

This thesis is concerned with the understanding of rural spatial justice and
contributes to its theoretical development. Rural spatial justice is about the
ability to produce the landscapes (spacetimes) we inhabit, as well as about
producing ‘differential spaces’ of diversity. Research within rural spatial
justice is diverse and has pointed to crucial aspects of rural everyday life, the
importance of recognition and of the relationship to nature and landscapes.
However, two aspects seem to need more attention: the sensory aspect of the
production of landscapes and the use of the past through (emotional and
sensory) memories and ideas. These two aspects are found with art, not least
when art is in the form of statues or art-monuments.
The thesis answers the research question: From a sensory perspective
what segmentations can be found within landscape performances with public
art engaged with the past and how does this affect the understanding of rural
spatial justice?
The thesis does that through a rhizomic rhythmanalysis mainly inspired
by the method of intuition, the rhizomic thinking of Gilles Deleuze & Felix
Guattari, and Sensory Studies. And through a case study of two public
artworks, located in the rural landscape on the Danish west coast, where
landscape performances among locally engaged people are explored through
how they connect the sensory encounters with the statues, with memories and
ideas of the statues and the sensory landscape. Inspired by sensory
ethnography, mobile sensing-with interviews was conducted supported by
auto sensory fieldwork, desktop research and interviews with participants in
nine different rural art & culture activities.
The thesis shows that different forms of sensory segmentation occur in
two overall ways. First, around the statues where the segmentary forces of the
surrounding landscape dominates. And second, sensory segmentation with
the statue, where the segmentary forces of the statues dominate the affective
relationship between the statues and those who encounter them. Based on this
the thesis suggest three lines of sensory segmentation relating to spatial justice in different ways: ‘Possibility by sensory desegmentation’, ‘diversity
by subtle sensory segmentation’, and ‘spatial anchoring by sensory
resegmentation’. And that attention to these, along with the connected
concepts from sensory studies, of emotional heritage and decolonial heritage
practices, could make the understanding of rural spatial justice sensitive to
sensations and the use of the past.