Workgroup summary report: Missing Bodies
Members
Andy Clayden, Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield
Martin Goodman, Department of English, University of Hull
Hilary Grainger, University of the Arts, London
Gordon Raeburn, recently completed his PhD at Durham University's
Department of Theology and Religion
Sarah Tarlow, Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
John Troyer, Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath
Claudia Venhorst, Centre for Thanatology, Radboud University, Nijmegen
Sue Vice, School of English, University of Sheffield
Summary
Our workgroup had a second small meeting in Leicester in early July. In the
end, only four members were able to attend, but we had a productive
meeting and decided some next steps. For us, the phrase ‘missing the body’
conveyed both the absence of the dead body in contemporary death
practices and an emotional yearning for it. When and why does the dead
body matter? Where is it – and do we care where it is? How do the places of
dead change in significance as memory fades? The principal aim of the
group will be to organise an online and real exhibition on the theme ‘Missing
bodies’ that would allow us to explore some tensions around the dead body,
and to raise some questions, even if we cannot answer them or directly
affect policy.
Our preliminary list of themes includes:
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Sacred spaces (what makes a place ‘sacred’?)
The disappearance of places of the dead/ forgetting
Re-emergence and transformation
Special places in the landscape (map)
Tradition and time depth. Reinventing, rediscovering and curating the
past
Re-making bodies. Material alternatives and transformations of the
body (bodies made into swords or reconstituted in cremation urns in
prehistory; compressed into diamonds today)
Absences: unmarked and forgotten graves
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As above so (not) below: above ground and below ground
landscapes of death
We have an idea about how we'd like to organise the exhibition. The idea of
an interactive map to which we can pin images, free text, art, poetry, etc.
should be the central and integrative part of the exhibition. Ideally this would
be a zoomable google map. We will be talking to the organisers of ‘History
Pin’ about whether they can work with us to realise this plan.
To begin with each member of the group will prepare about 20 things
(photos, other images, short texts) to go on the map. These can be
personal/biographical, or academic, or artistic, but they all have to be
related to a place. We can begin to populate the map, while restricting
access to just the work group, then we can open it up to the whole network,
and eventually, when we are ready to launch, to everybody.
Andy Clayden will be sending a briefing round work group members with a
clearer outline of the kind of content they might want to include and what
we are aiming to do.
Sarah Tarlow is trying to hand over co-ordination of the group to Claudia
Venhorst, but as Claudia was unable to attend the July meeting and
communications have not been easy, this is still problematic.
Key Words
Bodies, absence, commemoration, missing, memory, grief, place, landscape