Projects
The Shape of Grief -VR
The Shape of Grief -VR
The Shape of Grief – VR is inspired by Scotland’s coffin roads, historic paths where communities once carried their dead to burial. It asks: what if grief could be seen moving through and around us, forming a shifting architecture of memory, burden, and collective ritual?
An experimental immersive artwork inspired by Scotland’s coffin roads — historic routes where communities once carried their dead across remote landscapes to burial. The project explores what it might mean if grief could be seen moving through and around us, forming a shifting architecture that is both burden and memorial.
In the VR prototype, audiences encounter a dancer moving through a Highland coffin road landscape, carrying a changing sculptural form that embodies grief. As the choreography unfolds, participants shift from observing the movement to experiencing the environment from within, exploring how grief might be expressed through space, movement and digital form.
Experiment
£20,000
Aims of the project
Developed in collaboration with the Digital Design Studio at Glasgow School of Art, this phase of the project experiments with choreography, 360° capture and 3D environments to test how themes of remembrance, ritual and landscape might be translated into immersive virtual space.
Audience testing with disabled and neurodivergent participants and rural communities will help shape how the work evolves, exploring how immersive technology can expand access to remote heritage landscapes and shared cultural rituals.
Meet the artist
Gail Sneddon
Lead Artist
she/her
Gail Sneddon is an award-winning choreographer, visual artist and performance maker based in Moray in the Scottish Highlands. She creates large-scale, collaborative, site-responsive performances and video works, building immersive worlds where dystopia, wonder and myth collide. Her work has been described as otherworldly, magical and sensorial. Gail trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and holds a Master’s in Performance Design and Practice from Central Saint Martins. Her work spans dance, film and installation, and has been presented nationally and internationally. She is currently exploring how immersive technologies can expand access to landscape-based performance in rural contexts..
