The Promise, Arnos Vale.

Death

The Common Ground

Laura Browne Rebecca Hopwood Ellie Lanham Ali Treasure

Death

The Common Ground

Laura Browne Rebecca Hopwood Ellie Lanham Ali Treasure

“ The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears,

In the beginning

The entrance is wide and there are staff at the gate The immediate land is neatly organised and grid like, on a flat terrain. As you are lead further away from the gates, the sound of the road becomes more distant, the ground steeper, the plots less organised, and the damp smell of undergrowth and trees more dense. The paths are narrow and weave between, and often over the tombs. There are grandiose structures sporadically placed througout plots of neglected stone, slowly absorbed by the woodland.

IT’S DEAD NICE HERE

for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”

Albert Einstein Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust is a registered charity, the funding from which secures it’s future. Arnos vale is the only fully surviving garden cemetery in the UK, a prevalent and sacred piece of rural land accessible to the public, local to central Bristol. It is also home to a café, gift shop, and various events, such as weddings, and Halloween parties. The mixed use of the site provoked a discussion in the use of a cemetery, now and in future, and of appropriate cemetery protocol.

“ Reality means you live until you die, the real truth is nobody wants reality.”

Chuck Pallanuik

Why do we bury the dead?

Why do we hope for something beyond?

Why do we dress a corpse in it’s best clothes and paint it’s face?

Why does it cost over £7,000 to die?

Why do we bury 30 million board feed of hardwood, 90,000 tons of steel, and 750,000 gallons of embalming fluid each year?

What do we believe in?

What is the role of the cemetery?

‘TIL DEATH US DO PART

“ Life is pleasant.

Death is peaceful.

Isaac Asimov

It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”

Your body has life giving potential.

A human corpse is rich in nitrogen, water, calcium and phosporous, the key ingredients for rich, nutrient soil. If you can’t be sure you’ll live on in another realm, another life, your death can bring life on earth. The overgrowth of dense greenery at Arnos Vale is a stark reminder of the unrelenting force of nature.

LET’S STRETCH OUR LEGS

DYING FOR A COFFEE

“ The fear of death follows from the fear of life.

A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time” Mark Twain

There’s a cafe in Aushwitz.

Pay your bill with your respects.

THE D WORD To be surrounded by tombs is to remind yourself of your own mortality. Perhaps the worst part about dying is the grief felt by those left behind. Perhaps the funeral, the burial, the grave are for those people, rather than the deceased.

Perhaps as time progresses, taking with it the human race, the need for cemeteries will be less urgent, consideration for the environment more prevalent, mythical belief systems less prominent. We need to update our relationship with death.

“ Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.�

Haruki Murakami

Dedicated to the memory of:

George and Brenda Prior, rest in peace.

Also Rebecca Browne, Although we never met, you’ll always be with me.

Grief and love are joined, grief cannot be without love.

Years pass and memories fade, but you live on inside the hearts of everyone who was lucky enough to know you.

Ken Horner; a star that will never fade.

Produced by students of UWE in conjunction with The Promise, Arnolfini.