Dr Ros Gray
Staff details
Ros is Reader in Fine Art, Critical Studies and Programme Director of the MA Art & Ecology. Her research and teaching often involves collaborations with artists, scientists and activists, addressing ecological emergency with an emphasis on climate justice. Coming to ecology from a background researching militant filmmaking, she is interested in decolonial, eco-feminist and queer approaches to ecological stewardship.
Ros is on the Editorial Board of Third Text and is co-commissioning editor of the Goldsmiths Press book series Planetarities. She has organised numerous international conferences and film screening programmes, public engagement relating to soil care and climate change, and she was commissioned to make the podcast ‘The Coloniality of Planting’ by Camden Art Centre for the series Botanical Minds. Ros has coordinated the Goldsmiths Allotment since 2016 and she is currently leading the development of the Art Research Garden and Laboratory.
Academic qualifications
- Doctorate (PhD), Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London 2007
- MA Cultural Studies with Distinction, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London 2001
- MA English Language and Literature, St Anne's College, University of Oxford 1994
Teaching and Supervision
I am currently supervising the following doctoral students:
Morag Colquhoun, Department of Art, Goldsmiths
Gerard Ortin, Department of Art, Goldsmiths (Berlin Biennale, 2022)
Borbala Soos, Department of Art, Goldsmiths
Marie-Alix Isdahl, Department of Art, Goldsmiths
Sophie Williamson, Department of Art, Goldsmiths
Research interests
Ros’s research focuses on art, ecology and planetarity, particularly artistic approaches to environmental crisis involving soil care, cultivation and rewilding, with a focus on eco-feminist, climate justice, queer and crip approaches. She is currently developing a new research project, with the working title Arts of Planetary Rewilding.
Recent publications include essays in Anthony Downley (ed), Palestine Is Not a Garden (forthcoming), Edward Chell, Transports of Delight (forthcoming), Carl Gent, Felon Herb (Kelder, 2021), and Elin Wagner and Elisabeth Tamm, Peace with the Earth (2021).In 2021-2022 she was Principal Investigator on the Natural Environment Research Council Creative Climate Partnership Sensing Soil, which initiated the first artist residency in the Art Research Garden at Goldsmiths. In 2020 she was commissioned with Dr Shela Sheikh by Camden Art Centre to produce the podcast The Coloniality of Planting, as part of their Botanical Minds. This built on previous writing and research that examined the legacies and contemporary impacts of economic botany and colonial planting regimes, particularly the Third Text special issue The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions that she co-edited in 2018. Ros’s approach to ecology is grounded in her research background.
For more than fifteen years, she researched militant filmmaking networks dedicated to anti-colonial revolution and decolonisation, which after numerous articles, book chapters and curation of film programmes and public events culminated in her monograph Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution: Anti-colonialism, Independence and Internationalism in Filmmaking, 1968-1991 (James Currey, 2020). Ros has published a pamphlet of poetry titled Comma (Earthbound Press, 2021), which addresses themes of chronic illness, expanding and contracting lifespans and more-than-human ecological relation.
Publications and research outputs
Book
Gray, Ros. 2020. Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution: Anti-Colonialism, Independence and Internationalism in Filmmaking, 1968-1991. Martlesham: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9781847012371
Book Section
Gray, Ros. 2023. Broken Earth. In: Alona Pardo, ed. RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology. London: Barbican.
Gray, Ros. 2023. The Art of Planetary Rewilding. In: Anthony Downey, ed. Nida Sinnokrot: Palestine Is Not a Garden. Berlin: Sternberg Press. ISBN 9783956796302
Gray, Ros. 2022. Everyone on deck! In: Edward Chell, ed. Transports of Delight. ISBN 9781739186104
Gray, Ros. 2021. Vous n'avez jamais entendu parler d'internationalisme?: Les amitiés socialistes du cinéma mozambicain [translation]. In: Maria-Benedita Basto; Françoise Blum; Pierre Guidi; Héloïse Kiriakou; Martin Mourre; Céline Pauthier; Ophélie Rillon; Alexis Roy and Elena Vezzadini, eds. Socialismes africains / Socialismes en Afrique. Paris: Les Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme. ISBN 9782735126989
Gray, Ros. 2021. Strangling the Parrot. In: , ed. Felon Herb. London: Kelder Press, pp. 21-36. ISBN 9781838199012
Sheikh, Shela; Gray, Ros; Wolf, Nicole; César, Filipa; Grisey, Raphaël and Touré, Bouba. 2018. Fugitive Remains: Soil, Celluloid and Resistant Collectivities. In: Cooking Sections, ed. The Empire Remains Shop. New York: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, pp. 209-223. ISBN 978-1-941332-37-5
Gray, Ros. 2017. Clear Lines of an Internationalist Map: Foreign Filmmakers in Angola at Independence [English translation]. In: Maria do Piçarra and Teresa Castro, eds. (Re)Imagining African Independence: Film, Visual Arts and the Fall of the Portuguese Empire. Oxford: Peter Lang. ISBN 9781787076396
Gray, Ros. 2016. Você já ouviu falar de internacionalismo? As amizades socialistas do cinema moçambicano [translation]. In: Lucia Monteiro, ed. África(s): Cinema e revolução: As Independências de Angola, Guiné-Bissau e Moçambique em filmes de luta e memória (catálogo de mostra de cinema, realizada no cinema Caixa Belas Artes, São Paulo, de 10 a 23 de novembro de 2016). São Paulo: Caixa Belas Artes.
Gray, Ros. 2016. Decolonisation. In: Sangeeta Ray and Harry Schwarz, eds. The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4443-3498-2
Gray, Ros. 2015. Linhas Claras num Mapa Internacionalista: Cineastas Estrangeiros em Angola durante a Independência. In: Maria do Carmo Piçarra and Jorge Antonio, eds. Angola - O Nascimento de Uma Nação: O Cinema da Independência. 3 Lisbon: Guerra & Paz.
Gray, Ros. 2012. Haven’t you heard of internationalism?: The Socialist friendships of Mozambican cinema. In: Lars Lyngsgaard and Fjord Kristensen, eds. Postcommunist Film - Russia, Eastern Europe and World Culture: moving images of postcommunism. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 53-74. ISBN 9780415671644
Gray, Ros. 2010. Dreaming of Islands. In: , ed. Renée Green: Endless Dreams and Time-Based Streams. San Francisco, CA: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Article
Gray, Ros and Sheikh, Shela. 2021. The coloniality of planting: legacies of racism and slavery in the practice of botany. The Architectural Review(1478), ISSN 0003-861X
Sheikh, Shela and Gray, Ros. 2018. La terre damnée: conflits botaniques et interventions artistiques. Le journal des laboratoires (Cahier C), pp. 3-6.
Gray, Ros and Sheikh, Shela. 2018. Editor's Introduction: The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions. Third Text, 32(2-3), pp. 163-175. ISSN 0952-8822
Gray, Ros. 2014. A Lingering Lusotopia: Thinking the Planetary from Angola. Art Margins, 3(1), pp. 3-27. ISSN 2162-2574
Gray, Ros. 2010. An Archive of Aspirations. Jornal do Atelier Real, pp. 11-12.
Gray, Ros. 2009. ‘Front of House’. Textile The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 7(2), ISSN 14759756
Gray, Ros. 2003. Chinese Whispers: Variations on Textile. Textile The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 1(2), pp. 158-173. ISSN 14759756
Gray, Ros. 2002. Lost and Found: A Modicum of Dignity. The Journal of Visual Culture, 1(1), pp. 131-134. ISSN 14704129
Audio
Sheikh, Shela and Gray, Ros. 2020. The Coloniality of Planting.
Conference or Workshop Item
Gray, Ros. 2014. 'The Socialist Friendships of Mozambican Cinema'. In: Red Africa. Calvert 22, United Kingdom.
Gray, Ros. 2014. 'O Anticolonialsimo da Imagen Militante in the Próximo Futuro series Novos Poderes'. In: A arte do comum e a produção da cultura: O Anticolonialismo da Imagem Militante à Guerra das Escritas. Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal.
Gray, Ros. 2012. 'The Militant Image - A Ciné Geography lecture'. In: Cinematic Migrations lecture series, MIT programme in Art, Culture and Technology. MIT, United States.
Gray, Ros. 2010. 'Henrique Neves and Clément Darrasse’s ‘Made in.''. In: Henrique Neves and Clément Darrasse’s ‘Made in.'. British Council, Lisbon, Portugal.
Gray, Ros. 2007. 'Third Cinema: Filming the Revolution in Mozambique'. In: Curating the Postcolonial, conference organised by the Royal College of Art. Goethe Institute, London, United Kingdom.
Gray, Ros. 2005. '‘Algumas experimentações emergentes nas telas em Moçambique’'. In: Encontros – Maputo 2005, Festival of Documentary Films at the Centro Cultural Franco. Moçambicano, Maputo, Mozambique 27 September–4 October 2005.
Gray, Ros. 2003. '‘Momentary Stability’'. In: Warp:Woof – Aurality, Musicality, Textuality, Congress CATH 2003. University of Leeds, United Kingdom 10 – 12 July 2003.
Edited Journal
Gray, Ros and Sheikh, Shela, eds. 2018. The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions, Third Text, 32(2-3). 0952-8822
Eshun, Kodwo and Gray, Ros, eds. 2011. The Militant Image: A Ciné-Geography, Third Text, 25(1). 0952-8822
Thesis
Gray, Rosalind Laura. 2008. Ambitions of Cinema: Revolution, Event, Screen. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London
Further profile content
Conferences and talks
2023: ALA lecture series: Ros Gray and Boukary Sawadogo
2021: Public Art and Environment, Public Art Now conference, Dublin Technical University
2021: Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution, CAS seminar series, University of Edinburgh
2020: Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution, Cinema & Revolution Conference, Escola das Artes, Universidade Catolica, Porto
Grants and awards
2022:
'Sensing Soil' Creative Climate Collaboration: COP 26 Environmental Science Public Engagement
Sensing Soil Creative Climate Collaboration established a partnership between Dr Ros Gray, soil scientist Dr Jacqueline Hannam, artist Harun Morrison and Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network.
