This project began with a two-day inten­sive research res­i­den­cy at the Sheffield Gen­er­al Ceme­tery. Includ­ing a series of tours and trails led by the Sheffield Gen­er­al Ceme­tery Trust and the Geo­log­i­cal Soci­ety, the res­i­den­cy pro­vid­ed insights in to the his­to­ry of the site. The end of the research res­i­den­cy was marked by a pub­lic in-con­ver­sa­tion, in which Maud Haya-Baviera, Vic­to­ria Lucas and Joan­na Whit­tle talked about their findings. 

Back in the stu­dio, as with all of their research, there has been a long peri­od of mak­ing in response to the objects, doc­u­ments and sites encoun­tered, which has result­ed in a col­lec­tion of new art­works and relat­ed events. 

The ​‘Egypt­ian Gate’, sit­u­at­ed at the top entrance to the non-con­formist half of the Sheffield Gen­er­al Ceme­tery, appro­pri­ates iconog­ra­phy from a vari­ety of belief sys­tems; but most pre­dom­i­nant­ly the influ­ence is Egypt­ian. This style is a result of Napoleon’s deci­sion to include schol­ars in the inva­sion of Egypt as a part of his 1798 cam­paign.1 Their sub­se­quent stud­ies of this ancient cul­ture became the foun­da­tion of Egyp­tol­ogy, and Egypt­ian-inspired design and sym­bol­ism seeped in to Euro­pean arts and cul­ture from the first half of the 19^th Cen­tu­ry. Samuel Worth’s archi­tec­tur­al designs at the Sheffield Gen­er­al Ceme­tery form part of this move­ment, and the bor­rowed shapes, styles and sym­bols are vis­i­ble across the ceme­tery grounds.

The ouroboros sym­bol fea­tures in a num­ber of ancient tra­di­tions, con­texts and geo­gra­phies, as Joobin Bekhrad has ascer­tained.2 In addi­tion to Egypt­ian sym­bol­ism, the ​‘tail devour­er’ is sig­nif­i­cant in Greek alche­my, Norse mythol­o­gy, Hin­duism, Iran­ian Mithraism and Mesoamer­i­can reli­gion. It is also ​“com­par­i­ble to the Chi­nese yin and yang, depict­ing the har­mo­ny of con­trary forces, as well as the cos­mic dichoto­my of light and dark­ness in Manichaeism and the Zoroas­tri­an phi­los­o­phy of the far­va­har, which first posit­ed that each soul was com­posed of a pure, divine com­po­nent, as well as a human one”.3  

In addi­tion to the two ouroboros sym­bols, there are depic­tions of fasces, a sym­bol of pow­er and uni­ty dat­ing back to the Etr­uscan civil­i­sa­tion, lat­er adopt­ed by the Roman army, and sub­se­quent­ly used as an emblem of author­i­ty in Fas­cist Italy. What I find deeply inter­est­ing here is how the mean­ing of these sym­bols, both the fasces and the ouroboros, have been trans­formed and adapt­ed over time and space by dif­fer­ent civil­i­sa­tions, aspi­ra­tions and belief sys­tems. There is a mal­leabil­i­ty to their power. 

Dur­ing our res­i­den­cy, I ini­tial­ly con­cen­trat­ed my atten­tion onto mor­tu­ary orna­ments. The urns, were par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing to me, as they were a com­mon­ly cho­sen emblem adorn­ing tomb­stones. My main inter­est, though, lay in the fact that, while tes­ti­fy­ing of the death of the body, they also marked the deceased’s social sta­tus. Like most mor­tu­ary orna­ments, urns visu­al­ly and sym­bol­i­cal­ly rep­re­sent­ed the wealth of a fam­i­ly. The more com­plex and var­ied the cloth drap­ing the urn was, the more expen­sive it was to pro­duce, hence express­ing the wealth of the commissioner. 

My peri­od of the research at Sheffield Gen­er­al Ceme­tery coin­cid­ed with a peri­od of research I was under­tak­ing with archae­ol­o­gist Dr Lizzy Craig Atkins, Senior Lec­tur­er in Human Oste­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield as part of Fes­ti­val of the Mind, fund­ed by the uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield. Dur­ing this peri­od l was explor­ing funer­ary prac­tice and the mate­r­i­al cul­ture asso­ci­at­ed with it. I was think­ing about land­scape and the rit­u­al above and below ground and that endur­ing absorben­cy of earth which open and clos­es, engulfs and unearths. The pol­i­tics of above and below ground. Imag­in­ing then a flesh cov­ered hand reach­ing down to touch bones reach­ing out from earth, with a Michelan­ge­lo gap, fin­ger­tip bone reach­ing across cen­turies, to touch the ghoul­ish flesh of the liv­ing. How we dip in and out of the earth and leave our leather and leave our met­al and crum­pled shells. Fold­ing and knot­ting in the con­trac­tu­al pas­sage between realms. 

But I was think­ing too of land­scape and ter­rain and the lay­ers of this in the ceme­tery. Divi­sions and sub­di­vi­sions in the ceme­tery, Arca­dia, cat­a­combs, ter­ri­to­ries, and skir­mish­es beyond this world. Where a riv­er sep­a­rates the liv­ing and the dead. Between remem­ber­ing and memo­r­i­al. Where ​‘Here lies’ becomes ​‘In mem­o­ry of’ where cloth wraps the dead and pro­tects the liv­ing. Where linen becomes ille­gal. And all around us drought stressed horse chest­nuts pushed into a false autumn.

One of my inter­ests was trac­ing the words on tomb­stones and how they reflect these sub­tle inflec­tions of his­to­ry, from dirt to remembering. 

Her favourite words were eter­ni­ty will be too short to utter all his praise.

Who depart­ed his life.

In mem­o­ry of 

Into the val­ley of death rode he too

Affec­tion­ate remembrance

My tears are in thy hand

To the mem­o­ry of

To the beloved mem­o­ry of

Affec­tion­ate remembrance

To the sacred mem­o­ry of 

In affec­tion­ate mem­o­ry of

Who depart­ed this life

What are all my suff’rings here, if Lord, thou count me meet

With that enrap­tured host t’appear and wor­ship at Thy feet?

Passed away

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick. 

The invis­i­ble worm, 

That flies in the night 

In the howl­ing storm: 

Has found out thy bed

Of crim­son joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

There are texts you car­ry with you all your life, in a metaphor­i­cal pock­et sag­ging with all it’s weight. These texts, like a metronome, that tick through time. And here emerges Blake again, dust worn, some­where between earth stained immortelle ros­es, brit­tle with their memo­r­i­al and then lay­ered over in dust dry­ness, these horse chest­nut leaves; pulling them­selves into autumn, to pro­tect them­selves. Round it goes, brit­tle and scratch­ing connections.

And anoth­er hinge, where time piv­ots and over­lays. The immortelle ros­es found in the crypt sur­vey, cre­at­ed in acts of memo­r­i­al, once pre­served in absurd­ly frag­ile glass domes brought me to think about the mines depict­ed in war mag­a­zines in Cardiff Spe­cial Col­lec­tions. Their strange blos­som­ing shapes, memo­ri­al­is­ing this one moment of split­ting time. 

And to the same refrain. Oh rose thou art sick