Pieter Claes: Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball
Momento Mori
In 2024 Geraldine was awarded an Arts Council England Research and Development grant in partnership with Highgate Cemetery, for ‘Memento Mori’ a site-specific performance/installation journey in Highgate Cemetery West Side - integrating visual and performance imagery with sung voice and live music - of remembrance, grief, and resolution.
Inspired by personal loss, the history of cemeteries, and our changing attitudes to death and grief, Memento Mori aims to explore different cultures’ rituals of death, burial, and grief; resonate within the common chord of loss and allow an audience space to contemplate their own personal resolution.
A five-part requiem composed by Felix Cross sung by recruited participatory choirs supported by a professional choir (the word requiem is used in its non- religious definition which is “requiem: an act of remembrance) - provides the infrastructure to explore how psychologist Kubler Ross’s 5 stages of Grief - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance can lead to resolution for both the grieving and the dying.
Inspired by 17th century ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Vanitas’ still life allegorical artworks, which included symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures, Memento Mori will explore and contemporise this genre creating animated 3D life size Vanitas installations that are relevant to today and after learning the possibilities of Immersive Art will utilise XR to enhance and enrich the performance by “making art with technology to actively engage with an audience.”
Memento Mori addresses themes common to all humankind and aims to resonate with everyone; people of all ages, cultures, of faiths or none, (including atheists, humanists, and agnostics) as will the opportunity that it will provide for all those who mourn those they have lost, especially post Covid.
There was a weekend workshop with 55 recruited participants on 11, 12, and 13 October 2024 with Sharings of the ideas so far to invited audiences on the Sunday 13 October. The evaluation and positive feedback from these Sharings encourage us to develop the piece further in order to reimagine it not only for each of the “7 Magnificent Cemeteries” but also to National and International Cemeteries in 2025/26/27.
Inspired by personal loss, the history of cemeteries, and our changing attitudes to death and grief, Memento Mori aims to explore different cultures’ rituals of death, burial, and grief; resonate within the common chord of loss and allow an audience space to contemplate their own personal resolution.
A five-part requiem composed by Felix Cross sung by recruited participatory choirs supported by a professional choir (the word requiem is used in its non- religious definition which is “requiem: an act of remembrance) - provides the infrastructure to explore how psychologist Kubler Ross’s 5 stages of Grief - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance can lead to resolution for both the grieving and the dying.
Inspired by 17th century ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Vanitas’ still life allegorical artworks, which included symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures, Memento Mori will explore and contemporise this genre creating animated 3D life size Vanitas installations that are relevant to today and after learning the possibilities of Immersive Art will utilise XR to enhance and enrich the performance by “making art with technology to actively engage with an audience.”
Memento Mori addresses themes common to all humankind and aims to resonate with everyone; people of all ages, cultures, of faiths or none, (including atheists, humanists, and agnostics) as will the opportunity that it will provide for all those who mourn those they have lost, especially post Covid.
There was a weekend workshop with 55 recruited participants on 11, 12, and 13 October 2024 with Sharings of the ideas so far to invited audiences on the Sunday 13 October. The evaluation and positive feedback from these Sharings encourage us to develop the piece further in order to reimagine it not only for each of the “7 Magnificent Cemeteries” but also to National and International Cemeteries in 2025/26/27.
Photo Credit: Robin Savage
N.B. This video of the Dress Rehearsal of the Memento Mori Workshop Sharing was made purely to document the outcome and to remind the creative team and performers what occurred.