‘Matter out of place’ is one of the ways that anthropologist Mary Douglas defines her symbolic idea of ‘dirt' in Purity and Danger. As she says, “dirt is essentially disorder. There is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder.”

Whether it’s the condemnation of an adulterer or a pair of shoes on the kitchen table, ideas around ‘dirt’ and what is dirty are windows into how societies are ordered: what they value, what they find threatening, and what they wish to exclude. 

As a name we think this helps convey Chasing Cow’s own non-adherence to established categories both in content – we like to let members pursue their own interests – and form – we view modes of artistic creation, whether that’s filmmaking, poetry or academic writing, as linked and encourage slippage between them. Finally, we think the name implies a level of critical thinking; if being clean means blindly accepting the values, behaviours, and hierarchies that shore up the current political order, then we have no choice but to be dirty.