Projects 2012 > The Future Cemetery > Journal
Here are a few photos as the Future Cemetery project has progressed, with some thoughts along the way.
An exhibition showcase displaying a Blackberry as a historic artefact makes an important point about the limited shelf-life of technology platforms. How do we future-proof the Future Cemetery project?
A video display of an actor demonstrating how to curtsey in an 18th century court dress brings a ghostly animation to a static showcase of costume in the Museum of London. Loved this.
Less impressed with the display of human remains as Skulls on Sticks, where skulls are separated from their context (and their bodies) and dehumanised into specimens. Interestingly, the Museum of London is not alone in this display approach - loads of medical science and archaeology museums display in the same way. In Bath Abbey vaults you enter the exhibition space by walking over a glass floor above a skeleton.
Beautiful monument to an individual in the City of London Cemetery & Crematorium provides inspiration. Can the Future Cemetery project come up with something as beautiful and lasting?
Communities within communities. Just like Arnos Vale, the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium became the re-burial ground for old churchyards on prime city real estate. Bodies were exhumed to make way for city development, and monuments such as this mark the Victorian approach to moving bodies that were in the way. The Watershed team were fascinated to discover their building on St Augustine's Reach stands on the churchyard of St Augustine the Less, where 18th century bodies rested until their reburial in Arnos Vale - a real example of time-travelling graves!
Posted by Felicia Smith
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After technical glitches we can now upload images onto the blog. Here's just a few for starters but watch this space.
Posted by Felicia Smith | 9 May 2012 at 13.02