What does it mean to be haunted? To imagine ghosts and other entities, or to be part of the haunting yourself? To be in a placeless place1, separate from the world, and yet firmly ensnared in its gravity? A Restless Spectre, is a heterotopia; a simultaneous construction and deconstruction of domestic space, a haunt, where queer, disabled, and fat bodies find themselves welcome, invited in.

Artist Sarah Sproule works primarily in the casting and mould-making process, utilizing plaster, clay, and found objects to create dimensional images of abstracted bodies – exploring wider ideas of otherness and the body through the lens of queerness, disability, fat politics and the intersections that exist between them.

What are Heterotopia’s? First used in the text The Order of Things (1966) by Philosopher Michel Foucault, Heterotopia is a term used to describe spaces (think: homes, for example) that create a sense of otherness by both mirroring and inverting the world around them.2

1. Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias.,” Michel Foucault, Info., July 20, 2024, https://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en/.

2. Dr. Sophie Raine, “What Is Heterotopia?: Definition, Examples & Analysis,” Perlego Knowledge Base, April 20, 2023, https://www.perlego.com/knowledge/study-guides/what-is-heterotopia.