Death: A Self Portrait.

The Richard Harris Collection at the Wellcome Collection.

Thursday 15 November 2012 - Sunday 24 February 2013. 

A fascinating collection of memento mori, with over 300 exhibits displayed through five themed rooms, featuring works as diverse as a Renaissance painting, an etching by Goya, anatomical illustrations and papier-mâché sculptures.  It also boasts the stunning War Collection by Otto Dix and one of the earliest known versions of the Danse Macabre from the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, alongside a range of contemporary artworks inspired by death.    

The collection contains items inspired by and celebrating death, amassed from countries across the globe over a 12 year period by Richard Harris, a former antiques dealer from Chicago.  The collection provides a unique opportunity to take a look at the many perspectives surrounding this eternally elusive subject. 

The venue also hosts a well-stocked book store selling the accompanying book by Richard Harris, and also offering a good selection of books and items in keeping with the theme.

The exhibition, which is free to enter, runs until 24 February 2013, and is well worth a visit.

For more information, see www.wellcomecollection.org/death.

 

The Piety Museum of Hungary

Piety Musem of Hungary

A fascinating find in Budapest is the Piety Museum of Hungary, a museum which illuminates the Hungarian way of death throughout recent history as well as hosting exhibitions on death around the world.

The museum hosts five exhibition rooms which display such diverse items as folk art and ethnographical material, mourning clothes and regalia, historical pictures and artefacts including death masks, coffins and urns, and three magnificent vintage hearses.

Established in 1991, the museum is one of a kind in Hungary - if not the world - and is well worth a visit not only for the Hungarian traditions, but also for the multicultural displays, ranging from pictures of Tibetan sky burial to Mexican Day of the Dead altars. 





Kerepesi Cemetery

It is located in the grounds of Kerepesi Cemetery, Budapest, which is one of the oldest Christian cemeteries in Hungary and one of the largest open-air statue parks in Europe. It is beautifully preserved and hosts stunning arcades, tombs and monuments, and protected green areas with interesting wildlife.

If you’re going that way or are interested, you can find more information here. on the National Graveyard Site.

Cadavers in the Cloisters: The Medieval Way of Death

Tonight saw the popular annual Summer Death Lecture by Brompton Cemetery guide Robert Stephenson, held in the Grade II Listed Anglican Chapel in Brompton Cemetery, where we were met at the door by the Grim Reaper himself.

The talk was an exposition on the attitudes and customs associated with death in medieval Britain, as practised by royalty and commoners alike.  Accompanied with slides, various subjects were discussed including:

       - The book of hours and the rituals surrounding death.

        - Purgatory, and visions of Hell, and people’s beliefs in how to avoid them,
          including by visiting the tombs of saints.

       - Transi, or cadaver tombs, where a sculpture of the decaying body sits on top of the tomb.

       - The dance of death, showing death as a lively creature.

The lecture examined how attitudes towards death have changed, and perhaps suggested that death in England was once much more a part of daily life than it is today.

Brompton Cemetery, consecrated by the Bishop of London in June 1840, is one of the Britain's oldest and most distinguished garden cemeteries. The cemetery was one of seven large, modern cemeteries founded by private companies in the mid-19th century (sometimes called the 'Magnificent Seven') forming a ring around the edge of London.

Robert Stephenson is a qualified City of London guide and a tour leader at Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries.  He teaches on London and Death Studies, and is also vice-chairman of the City of London Archaeological Society.

For more information about Brompton Cemetery and their events, visit www.brompton-cemetery.org.

London Funeral Exhibition 2012

This weekend, Carfax Studios spent a fun day out at the London Funeral Exhibition, held in the beautiful Chiltern Woodland Burial Site.

It was a great event, raising awareness about the importance of death and dying in modern society, and about the options available for end of life care and after death.

With exhibitors including The Natural Death Centre, Dying Matters, the Good Funeral Guide and The Bereavement Register, there were an interesting array of people to discuss the subject with.

There was a fantastic exhibition of coffins and urns, including willow coffins, cardboard coffins, and dissolvable and biodegradable urns. Also on display was a motorcycle hearse, a carriage hearse and a willow coffin on a pull-along cart.

In addition to stands there was plenty of entertainment - talks, storytelling, music from the splendid duo Nicetoy, puppet shows, basket weaving displays, and a barbeque (despite the rain!), and it certainly made for an interesting day out.
After spending time chatting with the exhibitors we walked around the burial site; it was such a peaceful space, with graves discreetly and beautifully marked, none of the gloom of traditional English cemeteries, but a nice space where nature can get on and do her thing undisturbed. And, crucially, the burial ground presents an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional burial or cremation.                        

Resomation

If you like the idea of an environmentally friendly funeral, another innovative idea alongside promession is Resomation.

Resomation is the dissolution of the body by a water and alkali based method called alkaline hydrolysis. The body is placed in a stainless steel vessel containing water, known as a Resomator, and potassium hydroxide, heat and pressure are applied. Within three hours, the body tissue is dissolved into a water like sterile liquid , and the soft bones are crushed in a processor, the same machine used to crush the bone remains in cremation . The liquid is recycled back into the water cycle, and the pure white ash may be handed back to the family as in traditional cremation.

Resomation was developed as an eco-friendly alternative to cremation and burial, and according to Glasgow-based company Resomation Ltd, it uses only a seventh of the energy used for cremation, produces no airborne mercury emissions, and the substitution of Resomation for cremation reduces a funeral’s emissions of greenhouse gases by approximately 35%.
Sandy Sullivan, Managing Director of Resomation Ltd, says: 'It is another choice that will appeal especially to those who wish to express their environmental awareness and concerns in a positive way in death as they did in their life.'

Resomation is not currently available in the UK, although the government has been approached about regulation and Resomation Ltd are currently awaiting the outcome. 

The process has, however, been regulated in some states in the US, and is available as an option in Florida.

Sandy Sullivan, Founder and Managing Director of Resomation Ltd, alongside the Resomator. 

The Archbishop of York on the Importance of Discussing Death

Death is such an important issue, and something that every person will experience – as such, it is a vital part of life but still remains a taboo subject.

An article was printed in the Telegraph today in which the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, warns that the last taboo could be denying us all a 'good death'.

The article quotes some statistics which are quite incredible:

·        Only one in three people in Britain has ever discussed their wishes for the end of their life with a loved-one.

·        Eight out of 10 people admit being uncomfortable speaking openly about the prospect of our own death, even though a third think about it privately as often as once a week.
·        More than a third of GPs polled had never initiated a discussion with a patient about their end-of-life choices and in their own lives only 35 per cent had spoken to someone about their own wishes. [1]

Read the full article here.

It is amazing to think that for something that will affect each and every one of us, so few people discuss it, even when faced with it.  It can be a traumatic experience when people that we love die, and many people don’t like to confront the idea of their own death, but through discussing and confronting the subject of death, we believe that people can lead a fuller life.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­__________________________________________________________

[1] Quotes from Telegraph. (2012). The last taboo is denying us all a 'good death', warns Archbishop of York John Sentamu.  Available at - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/9262888/The-last-taboo-is-denying-us-all-a-good-death-warns-Archbishop-of-York-John-Sentamu.html.  Accessed 25.06.12.

Promession

Idea for cemetery for promated remains.

Promession is being hailed as a new ecologically friendly improvement on traditional internment as well as traditional cremation (‘wet cremation’).  The idea was conceived by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, founder of Promessa.  

With promession the body is frozen to -196 degrees C by submerging it in liquid nitrogen; once frozen it becomes brittle and short vibrations are applied which, after freeze drying, reduce the body to an organic, hygienic powder which weighs around a third of the original body weight.

At this stage the powder has all of the water removed (65 - 70 %), and the metals within the body (such as mercury from dental fillings) are removed and recycled.

Not only is the resulting powder hygienic and organic, but there are no emissions of smoke or mercury to the air as there would be with cremation. The remains - called promains - are buried in an environmentally friendly coffin in a shallow grave, and within around six months to a year are absorbed back into the soil.  

The promains may be cremated if preferred, for religious or other reasons. Peter Mäsak of Promessa says: ‘This ‘dry cremation’ doesn't take any energy, it gives an energy payback of around 300kWh per cremation, in a very controlled burning process leaving no mercury and significantly reduced outlets of climate gases.’

Promession is not currently available as an option, but Promessa have several parties seriously looking into the possibility of becoming a promession provider and ordering equipment in 2012.

'Space Burial'

For those that always wanted to fly or explore space, ‘space burial’ could be an interesting option, but it might not mean what it would at first appear to..

What is commonly termed ‘space burial’ is the practice of sending cremated remains (cremains) into space, and there are a number of different options for this, including launching them into the earth’s orbit, onto the lunar surface or into deep space. It is also possible for the cremains to be returned to earth in some cases.

With these options only fraction of the cremated remains, typically 1 or 7 grams, is sent into space.

Whilst this is a novel and interesting memorial act, it doesn’t deal with disposing of the entirety of the cremains - the rest can be scattered or buried as would be normal with cremains.

At first it might seem a worrying environmentally unfriendly way of marking the life of a loved one; however the capsule containing the remains is transported as a ‘secondary payload’, which means that they are part of a greater mission.

Another environmental concern could be ‘littering’ in space, but according to Celestis, the only team that conducts Memorial Spaceflights, ‘Celestis spacecraft are carefully designed so as not to create orbital debris. Each spacecraft stays permanently attached to a rocket stage that orbits Earth until the spacecraft harmlessly re-enters and is completely consumed by Earth’s atmosphere — blazing like a shooting star in final tribute to the passengers aboard.’[1]

A young company in the UK offers an alternative to this which sees the cremated remains scattered into the stratosphere. Stardust Ashes provides a service whereby an environmentally-friendly balloon carries the cremains to a height of up to 100,000 ft, where they are released from a lightweight biodegradable urn into the stratosphere.

This may not seem as high-tech as a trip into deep space, but the gentle carrying off of the cremains into the sky is certainly heartfelt– the first ash scattering held by Stardust Ashes was to commemorate the life of the founder’s grandmother.

These methods of commemoration seem designed to minimise negative impact on the environment; however the fact is that cremation – by far the most common means of dealing with human remains in the UK today – is significantly damaging to the environment.

But whilst cremation seems the only way in which these memorial acts are currently possible, there are plans afoot which may completely revolutionise the death industry to make it cleaner and greener, and which may provide an alternative method to cremation that may see our remains being sent off into the space via balloon or spacecraft in a much greener way.

More on green alternatives to cremation soon!
__________________________________________________________________
[1] Celestis. (2012). Frequently Asked Questions.[online] Available at http://www.celestis.com/faq.asp. Accessed 06.06.12.

Just as a well spent day brings happy sleep,
so a life well used brings happy death.

- Leonardo Da Vinci

Get used to dying
before death arrives,
for the dead can only live
and the living can only die.

- Old Mexican refrain.

"Do not seek death.  Death will find you.  But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment."

 - Dag Hammarskjold

Death and Dying

Death, the one true certainty in life, still remains the ultimate mystery.

Our views of death and what ‘happens’ to us when we die, along with how we treat our dead, vary vastly across cultures and from person to person.  Some treat death with solemnity whilst others view death as a celebration of life and the beginning of our next big adventure.

Despite claims of ghosts and reports of near death experiences, there is no scientific proof for what happens to us after death.  Many of our answers come from the state or religion: nearly all cultures and major belief systems propound in some form a notion of life after death.

Many Christians for example, believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell and even resurrection – they believe Christ himself rose from the dead.  Other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism believe in reincarnation, a cycle of birth, death and rebirth, until through various means one becomes liberated.  Some traditions continue to talk to and honour their dead long after they are gone.   

All of these beliefs inform the way that people choose to live, to die, and to deal with their dead.

Ever-changing social and environmental factors influence our beliefs and attitudes towards death.  This directly affects the way we treat our dead and dying, and, more importantly, the way we live our lives.

This blog sets out to explore the various perceptions of death throughout time and across the globe.