Thursday, June 30, 2011

Participation is Powerful: Part 2, The Journey

About 200,000 Hindus make two-month pilgrimage through Kashmiri Mountains - MSNBC
A handicapped Hindu makes his pilgrimage to the sacred Amarnath Caves, one of the most revered of Hindu shrines on June 29 near Baltal, India. More than 5,000 Hindu devotees, braving sub-zero temperatures, began the hike over glaciers and along paths overhanging gorges to reach the sacred Amarnath cave housing an ice stalagmite, a stylized phallus worshiped by Hindus as a symbol of the god Shiva.
Pilgrimages and rituals involving physical exertion and sacrifice are common to all the world's cultures, and across all religious traditions.  Why this commonality?  Certainly adherents have a notion that being nearer to the holy will benefit them in some way, but I believe there is more to it.  

The journey itself, with its rigors and privations provides an opportunity for pilgrims to physically play out the story of their place in the cosmos, their relationship with the divine.  We may ponder, from home, the ice stalagmite lingam in a far off cave, worshiping it as a representation of the divine, but without the strenuous journey to visit it, we do not experience our relationship with Shiva in the same way.  The ice lingam is the same with or without us, but we don't really experience it without feeling the strain in our bodies and the relief of arrival.

So what does this have to do with funerals?  Everything.  The pallbearer feels the weight of the casket bearing her loved one and the abstract ideas of death and her love for the deceased become tangible.  The eulogist struggles to put the impact of his loved one on their family and community into words, and in doing so, he understands that impact in much greater depth.    Drivers and passengers in the cortege pass through familiar streets in a much different manner and are reminded that this day is not like all others because a life impacted others and the passing of that life is an important event.

Yes, we can stay at home and merely think about the deceased and their family.  It is a bother and a strain to attend, an inconvenience to dress in a special way.  It is uncomfortable to experience the emotions that are brought out by participating in these activities.  By participating though, by physically acting out our part, we feel our relationship and place in the rhythm of life as a physical reality. Our thoughts and feelings take form, and we can deal with them in a positive and meaningful way. 

for more on this topic, visit Participation is powerful: Part 1

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Musicians pay tribute to Clifford Brown at His Burial Site

Trio honors Brown with performance: A trio of musicians gathered at Mount Zion Cemetery
to pay tribute to jazz great Clifford Brown. (06/25/11)
A Cemetery remains relevant only when it is involved in the life of the community it serves.  More and more people choose to lay the remains of their loved ones to rest in places because they want them to be in a place that is peaceful and surrounded by life.  However, while scattering remains on mountain vistas and sandy beaches my satisfy our desire for a resting place surrounded by beauty and life, these places are inconvenient for us to visit and can change into housing developments or shopping malls over the years.  
The ideal is to have a permanent place of rest that allows for us to commune with our dead and allows for the variety and life of our communities to play a part as well.

I have written in the past about community involvement in cemeteries through that arts and by incorporating activities such as bicycling.  Here is a wonderful example of a jazz tribute held within a cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware.   

To the left of the gravestone marked “Clifford Brown,” three musicians played a tribute today to the Wilmington jazz legend who died at age 25.
Part of the annual festival held in his honor, the jam session was attended by about a dozen people at Mount Zion Cemetery where drummer Tom Palmer, guitarist Dexter Koonce and trumpet player Tony Smith played.
“It’s the first year of trying to start something to keep his memory alive in a different way,” said Harmon B. Carey, the executive director of the Afro-American Historical Society and president of Friends of Mount Zion Cemetery, both of which co-sponsored the event. “It’s different to have a jam-session in a cemetery.” - DelawareOnline


Saturday, June 18, 2011

My Favorite Funeral: An Interview with Anuska Oosterhuis



My Favorite Funeral was a media arts program created by Dutch artist, Anuska Oosterhuis. The project started in January 2008 with a website where people could leave a message with their favorite funeral wish. Other people could vote for the wishes they thought to be most special and which they liked to be shown on TV.   In May and October of 2008 a series of three episodes were broadcasted on Dutch Television.  
Although presented as "Reality TV", the main characters of the episodes were actors, playing from scripted material. The show got a lot of attention, during a few months Dutch national papers and radio programs interviewed the candidates and spoke about it in the media. The projected ended with a debate between the Ms. Oosterhuis, along with some of the projects collaborators, and intellectuals in the fields of art criticism and medical ethics in a public forum.
Ms. Oosterhuis has graciously agreed to share a conversation about this fascinating project on The Daily Undertaker.


My Favorite Funeral - Episode 1 from Anuska Oosterhuis on Vimeo.

Pat McNally: Your project challenges the role that media plays in our lives. Starting out with your website soliciting ideas for novel ways to remember the dead and lay them to rest.  Participants interacted by submitting their ideas and by voting on the ideas that would be used in the program. Then, viewers were challenged with death and funeral choices on the program that were ethically difficult.  Each of the three episodes featured a funeral choice that included the intentional death of the protagonist; or in one case, the protagonist’s partner. In the end, the public discussion that took place brought to the surface a great deal of discomfort by some members of the public about being confronted by these issues.

First of all, we are living in a world where the media brings content that is considered private or taboo into our homes regularly in the form of  ‘reality TV’. All kinds of social issues from sex to drug use to ethically treacherous surgical procedures are brought to light, along with public documentation of intimate and dysfunctional relationships.  Your project takes this kind of programming one step further. In doing so, we are challenged to ask some questions.
As much as the media portrays itself as a passive observer in these ‘reality’ situations, it indeed helps to shape the outcomes.
What role does and should the media play in shaping the outcomes of the reality situations it creates, and should it be held responsible for the outcomes it helps to shape?



Anuska Oosterhuis: First of all, thank you very much for adding my project to the The Daily Undertaker. The questions you raise, are exactly the main issues of My Favorite Funeral.

At the time I was angry and fed up with reality shows. As an artist I had to earn some extra money, and I did so by working as an editor for a Dutch TV channel where I edited a lot of reality TV. Broadcasting self-centered stardom agitated me, and the way these shows used sensitive and personal subjects as content for their formats. I realized it didn’t really matter what was brought on stage: with the structure of formats, all outcomes were more or less the same.
To find out if this was really true, I fantasized about a new show that would deal with one of the remaining taboos in The Netherlands: death. I thought it would be impossible to create a show that celebrates death as a final party in which anyone can star. Death, I thought, was the last bastion that could not be destroyed. Death is irreversible, it often surprises us and we can’t bring it under control.
But as soon as I started, I knew I was wrong. The website got a lot of attention, and to my surprise it was all positive attention. Three funeral directors and a TV network called; they wanted to participate in the project, while the intention behind it was unknown to them. Commercial parties were waiting for funerals to become more personal and extreme. So my idea was not exaggerated, but more likely an indication of social developments.

The MFF- project made clear that it really doesn’t matter what you show on TV. It’s not about the subject or the people portrayed. When using certain formats, anything goes. 
About media responsibility: I do think media are responsible for the outcomes they help to shape, although it might be hard to know the long term effects of these outcomes beforehand. Therefore I would rather spread the awareness of the effects of formats among viewers than summon mass media.



PM: In your project there was a fuzzy line between what was real and what was fiction.  The program was presented as a reality show and the website indeed offered the public the opportunity to participate and to vote on which funerals should be featured on the program.  We know now that the episodes were fictional and featured mostly professional actors. Did the voting actually determine the outcome of the episodes, or was that prearranged?


AO:  No, the voting did not determine the outcome of the episodes. The voting was prearranged to enlarge the credibility of the TV program and to get people involved before the program was broadcasted.

PM: In light of the pervasiveness of ‘reality’ programming, I was surprised that discussing death and funerals was so disturbing to the public and to the intellectuals on the discussion panel. Obviously you have stirred up some dialogue with your project.  Was it the kind of dialogue you had hoped for?

AO: It strikes me as odd. Opinions shared in certain papers, panels and debates are very ’correct’ in an almost ‘old fashioned’ way. In the mean time, the whole world is changing. New values arise. I see two different worlds clashing; let’s call them “the world according to mass media” and “the Age of Reason”. I think I would have liked to discuss this clash instead of recalling the Age of Reason values concerning funerals and death.



PM: An issue that came out in the discussion was a claim by many that they knew that the participants were actors because of the outlandish nature of their desires.  When I first watched the series, I wasn’t convinced that the participants were real either.  However, I am convinced that many of the mainstream ‘reality’ shows use actors and contrived scripts too. I’m not sure if this was one of the discussions you wanted to start, but at this point in our cultures the real and fictional worlds have a very blurry distinction. Do you think that as individuals our sense of reality and fiction about ourselves is as murky as that of our society?

AO: Yes I do! That’s why I think someone like Amy, the girl of the first episode who wants to cast her body in plastic to retain her beauty, is very real. There is a big interaction between the real and the fictional world, between mass media images and stories and the way we understand ourselves.
By the way: Journalists wrote about the show and its candidates, whose pictures and stories were widely portrayed. Mass media made my characters come to live. This triggered me a lot, because in my personal world mass media images and physical experiences merge with little distinction. The fact that I personally enjoy this mingle and like to play with it, did not hold me back from attempting to create awareness of what mass media formats may evoke.  

PM: Are you familiar with the 1992 Belgian mock documentary film ‘C'est arrivé près de chez vous’ or  ‘Man Bites Dog’  in which a film crew follows a serial killer through his crimes, eventually becoming entangled in his activities and his fate?  I feel that there is a strong parallel between your project and this one, in that as an audience we are shocked and challenged by this portrayal of the media essentially condoning terrible acts in the name of objectivity. In both projects, the message is the same despite questions in our minds about the reality of the situation. However, in ‘Man Bites Dog’, we are relieved that we are watching a fiction, while the audience at your discussion seems upset about being tricked. What are your thoughts on this?

AO: You found an interesting parallel: media condoning terrible acts in the name of objectivity. Terrible acts or not, media are accessory to what we see and perceive. “A picture holds us captive!” Media are highly involved. With the help of my friend and philosopher Martijn Pieterse I wrote a manifesto about the role that mass media formats play nowadays, based on ideas like these. You can read this Memetic Manifesto on my website if you like (http://www.mediumisthemessage.info/en/manifesto/manifesto.html) 
Concerning mass media stories, you may wonder why people feel tricked by the fact MFF used actors and contrived scripts. When the first newspaper wrote a small article about a MFF episode, other media immediately picked it up. They copied each other’s falsehoods instantly, without doing research. Media is a fascinating world on its own. Its connection with reality is not obvious.

PM: In the website that started your project, there is a remarkable array of different creative ways for the disposition of human remains. Ideas such as exploding the body, burial in unexpected places and freezing the body in sub zero environments are offered up for votes. Along with this refreshing variety of ideas, however, came an overwhelming sense of the self centered nature of all of these ideas. Nearly every idea was a way to put the individuality of the deceased on center stage.
Certainly the idea of a personal legacy has never been far from funerary traditions, but do you think that this selfish theme is the wave of the future?
AO: I often wonder what causes this self-centered stardom. Is it something that exclusively belongs to youth? Is it the result of how we are approached by companies and their commercials trying to seduce us by making us feel special and unique, celebrating our individuality in taste and choice? Have we started to believe them? With the latest techniques we can spread our entire lives in photos and videos over the Internet. Did our Western society become more exhibitionistic by the compulsion to display private issues? And do we feel more happy about ourselves and the lives we live?
Questions for a new project…

PM: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts here.  I look forward to discovering more of your work!

For more on this project and others, visit Anuska Oosterhuis' site: Medium is the Message
and the My Favorite Funeral Site

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Summer So(u)lstice at Royal Oak Burial Park




Last October, I was pleased to share an interview with artist Paula Jardine about her All Souls Night project at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, BC.  That project tied in to the Autumn remembrance of the dead that is a part of many cultures.  Paula is one of the driving forces engaged in bringing communities back into cemeteries to experience moving and meaningful rituals and ceremonies, revitalizing themselves and these important places.

This morning I received news of another project of Paula's, this time at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria.  Royal Oak is another wonderfully innovative Canadian Cemetery that I highlighted in my interview with the Landscape Architect firm, Lees + Associates.  


Here is some information about this event, taken from the Royal Oak Burial Park site:

Royal Oak Burial Park in collaboration with local artist Paula Jardine will once again create a unique public event marking the beginning of summer. This will be an opportunity for the community to have a different cemetery experience.
Summer So[u]lstice at Royal Oak Burial Park will have 4 distinct but interwoven elements;
EXPLORE the history of the Burial Park on guided tours with Dave Obee local historian and author of “Royal Oak Burial Park – A History and Guide’.
MUSICAL ELEMENTS will add to the atmosphere as people move through and visit featured areas. Performers will include the ‘a cappella’ voices of Ensemble Laude; early music group Banquo; Harpist Alison Vardy; Spring Burke solo violinist; and Celtic musician Greg Joy.
FIND family members who may be interred at the Burial Park. Staff will be on hand to help locate gravesites and answer questions visitors may have about the Burial Park.
REMEMBER the dead, whether interred at the Burial Park or elsewhere, with unique floral tributes, personal poems, messages and paper prayer flags.
POETS Wendy Morton and Rhonda Ganz will recite and compose poems for individuals and small groups.
SEE the recently restored Art Deco Garden Chapel, the Woodlands green burial site, the expanded Terraces area with water features, and see plans for a new remembrance feature and cremation terraces.
PAULA JARDINE, a Victoria resident, is building on the popular success of the Night for All Souls, an event initiated by her as artist in residence at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. “Inviting the public to the cemetery is a part of a reinvigoration of the role of the cemetery in the life of the community. It’s also a great way to introduce adults and children to the subject of death in a friendly social setting, where we can support each other and acknowledge death as a part of life.”
This event is suitable for all ages, and is wheelchair accessible
Follow this link for a map to Royal Oak Burial Park  4673 Falaise Drive, Victoria BC
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Contact Me

My photo
Funeral service faces a crisis of relevance, and I am passionate about keeping the best traditions of service alive while adapting to the changing needs of families. Feel free to contact me with questions, or to share your thoughts on funeral service, ritual, and memorialization. dailyundertaker@gmail.com

Followers