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When Your Worst Fear Is Realised
Three months ago, Bryony’s life changed forever. Three months on, she reflects on the moment her world was ripped apart, how it links her to childhood fears and a new found sense of invincibility.
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Handling Death
Susan Elaine Jones invites you to spend time with human remains, her own interactions with skulls and bones have allowed her to engage beyond the scientific, a warm and enriching experience. Here she shares more about the events she hosts to allow others this opportunity.
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Making a Mourner: The Life, Love and Grief of Courtney Lane
Hairwork Artist, Courtney Lane explains the Victorian tradition of sentimental hairwork and her lifelong fascination with it. It’s just as easy to chalk it up to a series of peculiar happenstances in her life that led her here, but neither of these explanations tells the whole story.
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Art is Not About Pretty Things
Artist Sara Lucas challenges us to see the transience in beauty. Three years on from her breast cancer diagnosis she reflects on the moment her priorities changed. A few fashion magazines and marker pens later she felt alive. After all, we’re all going to die anyway, pretty or not!
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Nothingness, Acceptance, Resurrection: Creating a Second Life
By Mia-Jane Harris My work delves into the curious, fascinatingly odd and morbidly beautiful. I make intriguing juxtapositions between the gorgeous and the macabre, aiming to intrigue the viewer and pull them in to my world with strange objects and morbid curios to manipulate their emotions on the subject of mortality – life, death & resurrection.…
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The Vampire’s Flight
Claire L. Smith is back with another beautiful work of poetry. This time she explores the fragility of human mortality through a familiar figure… “She watched in a darkened awe, As in the dove’s beady eyes she saw, Nothing but a bloodied empty throne, Surrounded by rusting raven bones.”
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Maiden’s Bloom: The Art of Emilia Olsen
Olsen’s faceless maidens, with their pink, sun-kissed flesh, confront their mortality and heartbreak with the age-old symbol of vanitas – a grinning, bleached skull. Much like Persephone dragging the lush flora down with her descent into Hades, Olsen’s subjects embrace the darkest part of their ego within a state of botanic euphoria.
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From Parlor Tricks to Primetime: Fame, Gender, and the History of Ghost Hunting
When you read the words ghost hunter, what kind of person springs to mind? I’ll wager many of you picture what I do: someone between the ages of 21 and 35, probably white, lit by the eerie glow of a night vision camera asking, “Did you guys hear that?” Oh yeah, the ghost hunter is…
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“You must be very sensitive”
Artist Sarah Gay-O’Neill is here to explain that it’s very easy to normalize pain when people in authoritative positions, like doctors, tell you everything is fine and ‘normal’…but is it normal to feel the drag of a rusty pitchfork clawing at your insides?
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Living in My Post-Recovery Body: Everyday Confrontations with Death
Every day in my post-recovery body is a confrontation with death. Some see anorexia as a necessary confrontation with death that, if outlived, can lead to a fuller acceptance of life. This is probably true, but I don’t think the confrontation really begins until recovery begins.
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Playing with death – how the ‘Goodbye-box’ helps children grieve
Rosalie Kuyvenhoven runs Rituals Today, creating meaningful and relevant ceremonies. Her blog is full of innovation and ideas, here she shares Bonnie Jansen’s DAG Box: inspired by a non-directive approach to play therapy, in which children take the lead.
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The Music of Mourning
Formed in 2006, Valentine Wolfe is the combined effort of Sarah Black and Braxton Ballew. They describe their latest album, The Elegiac Repose, as their music with purpose. They wanted to heal, to grieve and find an honest foundation about loss.
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Prince Deserved a Good Death
Two years on, Caroline Reilly reflects on Prince’s death. Looking back at her own experiences of pain and prescription medication, she finds a clearer picture of this ephemeral man and her heart aches for the way he died, enraged at how badly society failed him both when he was living and after he died.
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The Girl and the Graveyard
By Claire L. Smith The dead lay smuggled amongst their bones, Relishing the peace and deceased silence. The sky was dark and the ground a deep plum, Tinted by the blood and tears of ones once loved. A dangerous laughter pierced the silence, Breaking the peace, summoning the dead. A girl giggling in a white…
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My Mother
Matthew Rossi’s mother was funny, sarcastic, brilliant. She loved like fire and hated just as intensely. She wasn’t always right, but she believed it enough that he often did too. They didn’t always agree. As a young man who had no idea who he wanted to become and a whole head full of self-loathing, a…
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Ultimate Fantasy: Magic, Murder & Performing Femininity in The Love Witch
Melissa Pleckham explains that for thousands of years there has been no symbol of feminine power more polarizing than the witch. Societal perceptions of witchcraft have swung wildly from reverence to scorn and back again, as female healers and magicians are viewed as either benevolent sages or as cunning manipulators seeking only to castrate men,…
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Saving Face: Death, Necropolitics and the Hiroshima Maidens
Dr Becky Alexis-Martin introduces the Hiroshima Maidens. Their happiness was fundamental to state in diverting attention from the harm caused by the American attack upon Hiroshima. They were given a Western “rebirth” in the USA, their otherness neutralised by reconstructing them socially, culturally, and to some extent even physically in the image of the American…
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Collector, Protector & Keeper
Rebecca Reeves draws upon the Victorian era with a focus on mourning symbolism, spiritualism and superstitions. Through her “cocooning” technique, she encapsulates grief, struggle and the suffocation of loss. She shares with us some of her beautiful creations, taking us behind a veil of tears.
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In The Future, We are Dead
German artist Eva Müller created this incredible graphic novel for her final year project at art school. Here she opens up about her own fear of death and the personal experiences that inspired this creation. You can support a campaign to get a copy of your very own too.
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Feminist Death Work: A History
Dr Kami Fletcher brings the important death work nineteenth century women in the Western world to the foreground. Just as the Fox sisters spoke through the dead to break out the private sphere to the public realm, women developed expert knowledge and performed high pressure death work. A neglected part of history, a history that…
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Drop My Body On The Steps Of The FDA: Death, Queer Activism & Advocacy During the HIV/AIDS Crisis
It turns up in health class and sometimes in history books, but the scope of the AIDS epidemic is far off and fuzzy. Sam Wall takes a close look at the government failings and acts of courage. Unless you read accounts by survivors or queer scholars, the full impact of the crisis is lost. The…
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Breakfast, Then Death
This work of short fiction by Claire L. Smith centres on the death of a victim of domestic abuse. Her trauma so embedded, she mindlessly continues her everyday life as she dies. Please note that although this post does not contain graphic descriptions of violence, it does contain graphic descriptions of injury.
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Le Bizarreum
Juliette is bring death positivity to France. Her YouTube channel, Le Bizarreum explores death through historical and archaeological cases.
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The Grief Geek
Not only does Caroline Lloyd refers to Death and the Maiden as glamorous and cool (thank you Caroline!) she shares her personal and professional journey of grief. Experiences that became the motivation behind her new book: Grief Demystified. The book she wrote that she so desperately wanted when she had disenfranchised grief and had no…
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Lest We Forget
Artist Sarah Perkins is here to share her beautiful series, Lest We Forget. A project that began life as My Secret London, it tells the story of lesser known London Memorials.
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199 Cemeteries To See Before You Die
Following the release of Loren Rhoads new book, 199 Cemeteries to see before you Die.
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Over the Garden Wall: Children, Death and the Mystery of the Unknown
Whether Krista Amira Calvo was so swept up in the panic or if her mind has forcibly forgotten it she cannot tell, but a childhood memory was brought back to her the first time she watched Over the Garden Wall, the Cartoon Network miniseries whose death positive themes made her heart swell with exultation.
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Murder Ballads, Gender, and Who Deserves to Die
Sam Wall is here to take us on a journey through morbid musical landscape to see how murder ballads of different eras have dealt with domestic violence.
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Archaeology, Death Positivity and Public Engagement
Robyn Lacy entered the field of Archaeology with vague ideas of how she wanted to proceed. Every one of which got tossed out the window after a trip to Ireland, surveying rural Catholic and Anglican cemeteries and churchyards. Robyn hasn’t swayed from burial-related study since.
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The Monster Inside Me
By Caroline Reilly Since I was old enough to go out on my own, my mother has been talking to me about Ted Bundy. In high school, when we had off campus privileges starting in our freshman year, she explained to my 14-year-old self about the serial killer who was good looking, and charming, and…
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Darker in the Sun
Krista Amira Calvo wants to know if you’ve heard of El Tren de la Muerte (the Death Train)? Carrying upwards of 500,000 migrants toward the border a year. They ride atop these high-speed snaking monstrosities, risking life and limb on a journey that will hopefully end in America – yet, often ends in death.
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Iris Schieferstein’s Death and The Maiden
Gabriella Daris met German sculptor and taxidermy artist, Iris Schieferstein, at her studio—43km outside of Berlin, by the Langer See (Long Lake)— where she encountered giant freezers filled with carcases— major raw materials for the artist’s work.
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The Gendered Garden: Sexual Transgression of Women Walking Alone in Cemeteries
Romany Reagan has been walking in Abney Park Cemetery for a total of nine years, often alone. As a walking practitioner dedicated to encouraging new perspectives within cemetery space, a recent personal revelation called for self reflection and a much wider contemplation.
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Double Take at Sharon Tate
This summer marked 48 years since the brutal murder of Sharon Tate and her unborn son. After discovering crime scene photographs framed at Hollywood’s Museum of Death; Tia Price reflects on the lasting legacy of this valley doll, icon and mother.
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Almost Heaven
Lucy Coleman Talbot interviews director Carol Salter about her new film. A beautifully crafted exploration of life death and love, described as a “vibrant, human story” by The Hollywood Reporter, it follows 17 year old Ying Ling, who is training to become a mortician in one of China’s largest funeral homes.
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The Wise Owl: Part II
“Barfoot’s quietly powerful vocals soar amidst the passing images with grace and poise.” One Film Fan “She is best known for the ethereal poise of her crystal singing voice. Wise Owl is an evocative song, well arranged and placed within a delicate but solidly crafted recording.The clarinet, cello and vocal soar around each other throughout…
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To My Father
Allison Carvalho has many questions. Questions like: Were you drunk when you did it? Did your mental illness amplify your alcoholism or was it the other way around? Where did you think you would go? Where DID you go?
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After Suicide
Following her father’s suicide, Charlotte Underwood attempted to take her own life. From the depths of grief, depression and anxiety emerged a desire to challenge mental health stigma and raise awareness.
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The Luminary
The Luminary was created by Mavis Frempong. It is an environment that commemorates death and also opens up conversations about it. RESEARCH PERSONAS Based on Interviews SITE ANALYSIS I have proposed a new build to be located at Queen’s Drive, Edinburgh. I have chosen this site because it is a beautiful, serene environment that harmonises with…
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Everything Dies! A Coloring Book About Life!
Bri Barton honors and celebrates soil biology and decomposition, funeral rites from around the world, the legacies of anti-oppression leaders and the complexities of grief and loss.
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Beauty in Decomposition: An Interview With Artist AJ Hawkins
Death & the Maiden co-founder, Sarah Chavez, talks to artist AJ Hawkins about her recent series, The Reclamation, which beautifully examines the decomposition of human bodies and the nutrient cycle through art.
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Tubercular Venus: When the Beauty Standard was Dying
If society’s beauty standard dictates a ‘proper’ woman should have pale skin and wear a crinoline that makes it near impossible for her walk through a doorway, chances are, that is a society that believes a woman’s place is in the home. So what does it say about a culture when the height of beauty…
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“Zombie” Votes (or, Voter Fraud and The Agency of the Dead)
It is no secret that Donald Trump has used death as a scare tactic throughout his campaign, and has continued to do so during his first month in office. Why does this tactic work so well? Because people are afraid of death.
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Sex & Death: Santa Muerte’s Strong LGBT Following
Enduring discrimination and even persecution at times makes the fierce, female skeleton saint especially attractive to those who’ve been ostracized, taunted or even subjected to physical violence because of their alternative sexual orientation. World leading expert on Santa Muerte, Andrew Chesnut has observed this special attraction from the outset of his research eight years ago. Introducing us…
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Bluebeard & the Final Girl: Feminist Retellings of Perrault’s Classic
Sonya Vatomsky is here to examine the myth of Bluebeard, Perrault’s text as a canonical work, is in dire need of retelling. Culturally, Bluebeard has found itself linked more to temptation/knowledge narratives like the Garden of Eden and Pandora’s Box than to narratives of heroic escape from monstrous kings and ogres. This in itself is…
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The Cowardice of Captain Stinson versus the Courage of Captain Sands
This week, writer Gill Hoffs shares an excerpt from her book The Lost Story of the William and Mary: The Cowardice of Captain Stinson. Taking us back to the May of 1853 when it took many, many hours and several journeys to evacuate the emigrants abandoned by the William and Mary’s murderous captain and crew on…
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On Death, Patriarchy & the Anti-Choice Movement
Death-phobia pervades many a political and social movement, but few have perfected the manipulation of it quite as adeptly as the “pro-life movement.” Their rhetoric invokes death at almost every turn. Aside from the most blatant messaging which explicitly likens abortion to murder, they also invoke death-phobia in the way they legislate abortion. Caroline Reilly is…
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Dead Good Gifts 2016
It’s that time of year. Some of us will be sitting back with a smug sense of achievement, whilst others pretending they have plenty of time. Here at Death and the Maiden we have complied our annual list of wondrous deathly fem gifts. There should be plenty of inspiration for your last minute dash and…
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What The Texas Fetal Remains Ruling Really Means and How You Can Take Action
Last Monday, after the Texas State Department of Health Services announced the addition of the word ‘cremation’ to their list of approved methods of disposition for the remains of an abortion or miscarriage, headlines were quick to appear suggesting a forced linkage between certain women’s health services and those of the funeral industry. Still in…
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Protest, politics & power: the tales of martyrs Anne Askew & Margaret Pole
Nikki Shaill, Director of Art Macabre Death Drawing salons and Drawn at the Tower, discusses the lives and deaths of two female martyrs from English history. On Wednesday evening, an event will take place inviting guests to draw these figures on the site where they were both executed and buried at Tower of London’s Chapel…
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A Celebration of Death
Festival of Ian Smith, 28th October – 23rd December, 2017 at Edinburgh’s Summerhall is set to be an eclectic mix of art, music, performance and installation – all investigating, challenging, confronting or celebrating death. The festival explores why we often find it difficult to talk about death in our society, and how art and artists…
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The Punished Suicide
Ivan Cenzi brings a strange story of suicide to Death and the Maiden this week. One beginning with sorrow and ending in spectacle. It’s 1863 and on hearing of a young girl’s suicide, anatomist Lodovico Brunetti requests her body be brought to him for experiments. What evolves from his casting and preservation work is unexpected.…
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Strengthen Your Sense of Smell While Contemplating Your Doom
We live in a culture that rejects scent the same way that it denies the reality of death. Nuri McBride is here to explain that perfume is olfactive art, like visual arts and music it has the power to move, soothe and inspire people. Nuri is creator of ‘Scent the Scene’ an exercise in perfumery, meditation…
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An Intimate Evening With Death Herself
Douglass Truth woke up after 3 days and didn’t remember anything of the time, but it was like he had been taken somewhere and given something to bring back. The journey from here Douglass found himself on was unexpected to say the very least. One of change, discovery and realization. Tonight we meet Dorothy and learn that…
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#BoneLifeWife Part II: The Exquisite Style of an Osteological Enchantress
It is easy to be enchanted by Regina Marie Cohn. Her exquisite style is evocative of old-time glamour; of poisoned spells and ornate chambers, as if her gowns were plucked from the boudoir of a raven-haired, underworld queen. Whether she is attending the Morbid Anatomy Gala, Death Salon, or a dark romantic fashion exhibition, Regina never…
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Little Miss Funeral
Lauren LeRoy is a funeral director from New York State. Entering mortuary school at nineteen, she had no idea what she was in for. Lauren reflects on her experiences in a male dominated industry and on why her job is so important. This beautiful dedication to her Grandfather’s memory takes us back to a snowy…
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A Better Understanding of Death
Last Thursday Death & the Maiden’s Lucy Talbot attended the Good Funeral Awards, as we had been nominated for the “Most Significant Contribution to the Understanding of Death” award 2016. Here Sarah and Lucy (the Maidens) reflect on the values at the core of their mission and introduce to you the other nominees in the…
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#NowGoCheckYourBits
Sara Cutting was told she had cancer. Triple negative breast cancer to be precise. Sitting in the barber’s chair, she instructed a shocked hairdresser to shave her head. This was the beginning of the Daily Different Headgear Challenge, Sara never could have imagined how far it would go. Her journey is an inspiration, learn how Sara…
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Life On Mars
There is something in the work of photographer Karen Jerzyk that cannot be put into words. The otherness of a world created from the abandoned and discarded is captured with a deep, dark softness. Each image tells us a story only our emotions can read. Karen shares her journey onward from her father’s sudden death…
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Sweet Fanny Adams
On this day 149 years ago, eight year old Fanny Adams was brutally murdered by Frederick Baker, a 29 year old solicitor’s clerk. Her grave still stands in Alton Cemetery, adorned lovingly with teddies, tea lights and flowers. Perhaps her name is familiar to you. Maybe you have heard the phrase “Sweet Fanny Adams” or “Sweet…
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Help Me Bring Them Back From The Dead
What started as googling, quickly became a visit to California and resulted in a rather sad discovery. In Hollywood, there are so many graves of long-forgotten or barely remembered stars that once shined brightly on the silver screen. This is not how these women should be remembered. Their stories should be told. Remembering them for who they were and…
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Talk is cheap. Burials are not: Why only telling people what you want for your funeral is not enough
Amber Carvaly is back on Death & the Maiden today to discuss a subject very close to her heart. As one half of Undertaking LA, Amber encourages anybody and everybody to talk about death, dying and their wishes for the end of life. Although this is important (and she makes clear it absolutely is) Amber…
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Amy Winehouse, Patron Saint of Camden
Today marks the fifth anniversary of Amy Winehouse’s death. In tribute, Death & the Maidens’ own Lucy Talbot reflects on first hearing the news and celebrates Amy’s legacy by examining the impact her passing had on the place she loved most. Gone but never forgotten. We love you Amy.
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The Wise Owl: Part I
Lewis Barfoot takes us to the darkest and most desperate days of grief. Sharing with us how her recent loss has affected both her life and her song. Her music and musical practice became driftwood for her sinking sailor. The most resilient flotation device you could imagine.
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#BoneLifeWife
Regina Marie Cohn left a success career in fashion to work by her husband artist Ryan Matthew Cohn’s side. Embracing her inner shadow, Regina explains how she began on this intriguing journey and found true purpose and passion amongst the specimens and oddities of their New York home. With so many exciting projects underway we…
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Leila & Mary Rachel Bryan
Driven by a need to unravel mysteries, particularly those that require some dissection of human behavior, Jennifer Darling embarked on her latest project: And They Were. Profiling cases involving missing persons, unidentified remains, and other “cold” investigations as well as providing a means to satisfy her curiosity. For Death & the Maiden, Jennifer presents the disappearance of…
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The Deathtivals
For Erica Buist, The Deathtivals Project didn’t come directly out of grief. It came out of her reaction to it. From snooping in a dead man’s fridge to computer investigations, Erica found herself on a journey of extreme anxiety and agoraphobia following the loss of someone it seemed she wasn’t entitled to grieve. This project…
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The Little Book of Burial
Krista Amira Calvo takes us on a journey across the globe with The Little Book of Burial. A playful hands on experience that sheds light on different cultures and their burial practices. Exploring the evolution of burial and some rituals that are no longer practiced but still very iconic and recognisable to us. This delightful…
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Rachel The Film
Karen Anstee is weeks away from the filming of Rachel. A short film about the complex relationships between love, death, family and religion. As writer and director, Karen shares insight into what inspired the project as well as some of the beautiful locations the production team will be shooting at. Ultimately, Rachel is an exploration of the…
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Sleeping Beauty
A beautiful work of fiction for you this week from Angie McLachlan. Capturing the essences of a myriad of deaths, feelings and experiences, plucked from her 25 years serving families & caring for the dead through the sacred art and science of Embalming. Making clear this is more than just a job, Angie delves into the…
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Keening & the Death Wail
S Elizabeth interviews musician Gemma Fleet of The Wharves on her project “Lost Voices” which explores vocal improvisation in folk culture. Volume 1. “Keening and the Death Wail” has roots in Fleet’s own childhood. She believes she encountered an Irish traveler funeral; an “unhindered display of grief” wherein the woman in mourning was not being hushed,…
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Death Becomes Her: Marilyn Monroe’s Posthumous Career
Ruth Penfold-Mounce tells us how it can pay (literally) to be a celebrity in death. Companies may choose the immortalised over the high maintenance to be the face of their brand. Marilyn Monroe is a shining example of this. She has her own perfume line, appears on all kinds of products & has even appeared…
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The Crime Museum Uncovered
Yesterday, after six months this long awaited exhibition at the Museum of London came to an end. With plans for New Scotland Yard to close the future of the Metropolitan Police’s infamously known “Black Museum” is uncertain. This carefully curated exhibition allowed the public to experience a selection of the items found inside. Many still…
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Stitching Mortality
Rebecca Hampton creates embroidery inspired by Victorian mourning practices and the fragility of our own mortality. Drawing influence from Post-Mortem Photography and historic funeral customs each piece becomes it’s own beautiful little Memento Mori.
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Shrouds or Lingerie? Traditional Female Burial Garments
Patricia Lundy explores the relationship between death & the feminine regularly on her beautiful blog Somthng Eldritch. Through exploration of literature and Victorian history Patricia delves into the mourning rituals of a bygone era. In this post sexual suggestion and the male gaze is contemplated by visiting the works of two amazing authors. Kate Mayfield…
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Death & the Maiden’s own Sarah Chavez (Troop) shares the horrifying story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan, New York City on March 25, 1911. An entire nation grieved over the 148 deaths that occurred that day, so easily preventable. Their collective outrage changed U.S. labor laws and led to the adoption of fire…
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World Anthropology Day
From the moment Myeashea Alexander heard the American Association of Anthropology announce there would be a day dedicated to the celebration of anthropology she knew she wanted to celebrate through outreach. Taking a hands on approach Myeashea created a forensic anthropology lab for the kids at local Brooklyn public school, Bedford Village Elementary. Exploring the…
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The Female in Mourning Jewels
Hayden Peters, founder and creative director of Art of Mourning gives us an illustrated tour of female mourning jewellery. Exploring the mourning industry of the 16th-19th centuries we learn about different trends in design and how this reflects cultural attitudes and social norms of the time. From memento mori to locks of hair and cutting diamonds…
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Mortuary Professions for Ladies: 1889-1910
Chris Woodyard presents some less usual mortuary professions for the ladies. Beginning with the funeral stenographer. From the late nineteenth century onward, it was considered bad form to read a funeral sermon from notes; hence the need for someone to take down the more-or-less extemporized eulogy…
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On The Street With Saint Death In Tepito, Mexico
Dr Andrew Chesnut is author of the only book on Saint Death in both Mexico & the US. Here he shares the experience of attending The Santa Muerte rosary service held in Tepito, Mexico City’s most notorious barrio. This is the signature public ritual of the burgeoning cult of the skeleton saint. Accompanied by talented…
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Rest In Pieces
To celebrate the paperback release of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses, author Bess Lovejoy is giving away a signed copy of her book. Rest in Pieces catalogs stories from the age of antiquity to today, tracing the evolution of cultural attitudes toward death and connecting the lives of the famous deceased…
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Drawn at the Tower
When the wonderful people at Art Macabre invited Death & the Maiden’s own Lucy Talbot to experience the first Drawn at the Tower, a series of events at the Tower of London after dark, how could she say no? Particularly when it would be the She Wolf of France walking into the beautiful low lit…
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