So far, we’ve decided it would be interesting to focus on cemeteries as liminal spaces where you often don’t expect someone to say they work at, even though they’re ubiquitous. We’ve been researching their recent changes in cultural status, with aftercare alternatives like cremation on the rise (up to 95% in some East Asian countries), exhumation and controversial discourse around land use and sustainability. We’d like to discuss these things with people working in the field, and touch on more poetic elements of their daily duties as well – reflecting on mortality and existentialism, questioning the afterlife, exploring this philosophical edge, maybe even the idea of tending graves as a spiritual link. All in all, we really want to get into the head of groundskeeper(s) and illustrate their two cents on working in this environment.
After sending out as many emails and calls as I could to local authorities and organisations, I was fortunate enough to have a phone conversation with the chairman of the Bourne Conservation Group, who manage the Old Churchyard in Farnham. Following this and our second group tutorial, I brainstormed some ideas for direction based on the new leads we had.
Below I've brainstormed potential interview questions for contributors, adding "Why is that?" to the end of each question.
Would you prefer to be buried, cremated, etc.?
What would you want inscribed on your tombstone?
What music would you want played at your funeral?
Who would you most like around you before you die?
Is there someone you would like to visit your resting place?
Would you describe the graveyard/cemetery as a liminal space?
Would you donate your body for research, training and education?
How would you describe your relationship with death?
Would you consider yourself spiritual?
Do you believe in the afterlife?
I also got the idea of using quotes as prompts from watching Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Modern World in light of my chosen essay topic. Here are some quotes I researched which could work well in expanding our contributors' answers:
"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."
- George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans
"What would life be worth if there were no death?
Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained?
Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?"
- Glenn Ringtved
"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague.
Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"
- Edgar Allan Poe
"Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not.
Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"
- Epicurus
A post on this blog made me think about how we would be filming or project in winter, just before spring begins to blossom, and the liminal connotations of that. Quiet, indeterminate and ambiguous, much like when we talk about death. Waiting for something we know is coming and have a vague idea of, but can't exactly predict. "Life is change".
Using Quora and Reddit, I was able to get an understanding of how people felt about cemeteries. I also researched cremation statistics and articles on the process/industry of aftercare. This helped a lot in understanding the potential direction and structure our film could take. It may be wise to incorporate some opposing attitudes to the topics discussed in our interview(s), as this would add conflict of interest to the film.
Key points/ideas on cemeteries:
- Death industry provides jobs and people deserve compensation for work.
- Fixed term leases standard in Europe - disinter graves, give family remains and re-use gravesite after around 60 years, unless they pay for continued maintenance.
- Showing love/respect for the departed when they are not conscious of their own aftercare - human decency, karma, coping with loss in Western culture?
- Mortuary business is dying out in some countries from the recession.
- How important to people is the "immortalising" ritual for closure in 2020?
- Berlin graveyards being "recycled" for parks, housing and playgrounds - Pastor Christine Schlund: “Christian faith is about life . . . I think by having children playing on the cemetery, the dead are honored in a special way.”
- Jewish cemeteries full of shrubs/bushes planted by loved ones instead of flowers. They also leave stones on the grave - flowers die, but stones represent ever-living soul.
Liking cemeteries:
- "Taphophilia", enthusiasts, "tombstone tourists".
- Walking by gives feelings of sympathy & respect. Prayer.
- History of Victorian picnics. Speculation of stories, reverence.
- "Solemnly beautiful, calming, peaceful." Fascination, tranquil, pausing for thought.
- Working at a cemetery is a nice outdoor job - work at own pace, no rush, restoring and cleaning headstones out of curiosity not treated as a waste of time.
- Architecture, art, remembrance, uniqueness, genaeology.
- "How people celebrate life and death. There is such beauty."
- Visiting graves can bring feeling of closeness, provides comfort, sacred.
- Symbolic of end of existence on Earth.
- Solid finality to the locations of burial.
- Visiting cemeteries reminds you that everyday problems are unimportant beside death.
- "Cemeteries are more like a garden with a purpose." Decorated surface to celebrate life.
Disliking cemeteries:
- Burying the deceased is unsustainable due to population growth and finite land area.
- Profiting from a grieving family (funeral costs, coffins, etc.) is immoral.
- Environmental damage - destabilise soil and prevent development, e.g. Parisian catacombs are a tourist attraction but restrict zoning and building, New Orleans above-ground burials in mausoleums because frequent floodings (below sea-level).
- Concern for material use - hardwood and metal caskets have slow decomposition rate.
- Some people never visit cemeteries due to melancholy, feel they are connected with departed loved ones always without visiting physical grave.
- Enbalming fluid is toxic, unnecessary extreme which should not be normalised.
- "Time heals all wounds" - necessary to honour former generations?
- Superstition & fear. Haunting, somber sculpture parks.
- Memorials can be ostentatious and divisive.
- Fear of death. Display of status. Legacy, ego.
- Hollywood horror films of 20th and 21st centuries give people creepy associations.
Key points from cremation research:
- Around 77% in UK.
- First UK cremation: 26th March 1885, Woking. Mrs Jeannette C. Pickersgill.
- South & East Asian countries such as Japan, Nepal and Thailand over 95% cremation rate. Hindu and Buddhist majority countries.
- Also environmentally unfriendly - releases pollutants & greenhouse gases.
- Not only carbon footprint but can be considered inhumane.
- Christian-majority countries such as UK have lower figures, but still on the rise.
- Orthodox Jews, Greek Orthodox Church and Muslim religions do not currently approve.
- Burial plots are commonly more expensive & less available than cremation.
- More mobile population, don't stay in town where family lived, more difficult to visit graves, opt for cremation, flexibility in how mourners interpret passing.
- Secularisation - churchyard burial not meaningful unless of certain faith, and decline in religious association means people turn to crematoriums & alternative funerals.
- Scattered ashes affect local eco-system; Mountaineering Council of Scotland and Welsh conservationists have asked bereaved relatives to avoid scattering ashes on certain summits, as it was stimulating unnaturally fast plant growth. Football clubs ask fans not to disperse ashes on pitches for same practical reason.
- Company called Stardust Ashes offers stratospheric scattering from urn from plane so ashes may circulate the globe, "scattering to the wind" theme.
- Celestis: Memorial space flights, portion of ashes launched into orbit or beyond. https://www.celestis.com/
- Companies provide special fireworks displays incorporating "cremains". https://www.heavensabovefireworks.com/
Through this research, I got the idea of using an elemental structure to discuss death and aftercare processes - Earth, Fire, Water & Air. Through this lens, our documentary would focus on Earth as we are primarily filming and interviewing cemetery groundskeepers, but we could think about using this theme as a brief introduction to our documentary. For example, we could mention that cremation has risen in popularity over the years, with ash scattering options available such as fireworks display, stratospheric and bodies of water (all corresponding to the elements), but what about traditional six-feet-underground burials in cemeteries? What has changed throughout history at these sites, how are things evolving and who is working to enable those changes? Since our direction is in the stream of biodiversity and botanical links to the life cycle, illustrating how nature and humanity mirror each other, this documentary focuses on the Earth element of the four. To this end, maybe a working title could be Earth or something along those lines.
I contacted several grave maintenance services in an effort to gather interviewees to share their views on this. In one brief chat, a respondent spoke about the social/emotional side to his grave maintenance side job; having recently dealt with grief, he found comfort in tending graves and started a business in order to help people achieve their own remembrance in a dignified way. By cleaning headstones and laying fresh flowers/wreaths, he found a rewarding endeavour that he feels is an important service to people, now offering personalised packages to his customers. This humanist angle would be great to include in our documentary and diversifies the viewpoints we could represent - we could link it to the cyclical life patterns of organic life, i.e. keeping graves tidy with fresh flowers keeps "alive" the memory of the departed loved one.
- Cost of funerals has risen during pandemic despite average ceremony only lasting 15 minutes. Direct cremations (no service, cheap options) have become more popular - a la David Bowie, loved ones can organise own wake/memorial/other form of send-off.
- A person's "soul" leaves at the place they died, therefore a grave/urn is not technically their final resting place?
- Graves/urns are tangible ways to hold someone's memory.
- Perspectives change with age and experience of loss.
- Burials at sea prohibit enbalming as it causes water pollution, special coffin design to ensure sinking, locations carefully chosen to prevent shore washing/fishnet catching.
- Woodland/natural brial, Zoroastrian tradition - no embalming, biodegradable coffin/shroud used, native tree/shrub planted on top. GPS co-ordinate, scanable micro-chip or small flat engraved stone/wooden plaque used to identify grave and site is managed to encourage native wildlife, plants and wild flowers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualConversation/comments/5e4w67/does_anyone_else_enjoy_walking_around/
Great subject for a short doc but I bet you can predict my reaction to the treatment of it. Music and text dominate overwhelmingly but great idea. It's moving to see someone care about restoring the gravestones to such a pristine condition although I also like the idea that nature is gradually reclaiming the grave and sort of drawing it back to the earth. Two very different ways of looking at it.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about the personalised statements you sometimes find on gravestones that reveal something special about the relationship between the living and the departed. That might be something to look out for. Good post that shows the range of your extensive research.
Also many famous poets have written about the departed. The cycle of life and death you have been exploring reminded me of this poem:
Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep
By Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/do-not-stand-by-my-grave-and-weep-by-mary-elizabeth-frye