Epitaph, Pistols and Pollinators I, An Accident & Emergence Project, 2010
In this project curated by Accident & Emergence, I collaborated with artist Rosalind Barker, I explored our common interests in connections between contemporary humanity, the unborn and cultural attitudes to the dead. Inspired by Rosalind's box containing half a female human skeleton intended as a tool for medical/artistic education, Rosalind and I both decided to explore our attitudes to this remnant of a once living personality and consciousness. The box, with its 1953 postage stamps and original labels led to an exchange of information with the initial
importers, Adam, Rouilly. Tiny fragments of The Financial Times from the early 1950’s were found as part of the packing material and fuelled further speculation. A medical examination of her bones and teeth established a 100-year time line directly connecting her across time and continents from an India under the rule of the British Raj (1858-1947) to our contemporary 21st century culture. We became a trilogy of collaborators, one of whom was lost, decaying to invisibility. In ‘Epitaph’ we summoned her presence and essence into our time and city. Giving her a belated beauty and reverence in her death, ‘Journey’ was the visual consolidation of our research process
