a virtual memorial (Part I)
For a long period of time, I have been wanting to realise an interactive art memorial project for people who died by means that are considered taboo — drug overdose, suicide, murder (when participating in actions related to drugs), etc. — you get the picture. In those instances where shame and shock are experienced by those who were left behind, the people who loved them & perhaps even at times — might even have felt relief resulting perhaps with guilt (for even having that thought.)
The project requires the public to participate and is a memorial.
Originally called My Hometown, then The Memory Memorial, through the last years, it became The Sin-eater. Although not a ‘sin’ in the strict religious sense. No this is when someone has missed the point.
What is a sin? or for that matter a sinner?
A sin simply is an act where someone has violated one’s own integrity, a sinner is someone who has simply missed the point.
What is a sin-eater?
A sin-eater was at one time a real occupation in some parts of England and Wales. A sin-eater travelled around the country and attended funeral rites. They would essentially receive payment to eat a piece of bread and drink water, wine or beer, and by this act assume the sins of the deceased so they could bypass any judgement. It was a ritualistic act.
One of the tasks of the sin eater is to save the dead from walking the earth as ghosts.
The last known sin-eater Richard Munslow was buried in Ratlinghope in Shropshire, England in 1906. A little over 100 years later a virtual sin-eater is called upon to act as a salve for the wounded people left behind. To honour their deceased family members or friends — making known their feelings without shame. The act of creating a memory to add to the memorial would, in essence, feed the sin-eater.
Following is a little history of the project and its shortcomings or failures. Later I highlight the motivation and concept and the most important part – the work has not yet begun.
Beginnings
The Sin-eater project came out of an idea based on an original project idea entitled My Hometown.”The idea had been in my mind for a long period of time and started with this short video created in 2008 and an attempt to get funding from the Franklin Furnace Fund in early 2009 without success. It’s gone through a long path and has still not been realised — YET. It comes in fits and starts.
After the rejection, I evolved the project further and wrote another proposal, this time in Romanian and in September 2009 and it was now called Monumenului Memorie or The Monument of Memory. That attempt for time and space to work on it was rejected. So it was put aside and I continued to work on some commercial web development and design projects to survive (not having a following and collectors of my work at that time, that is the reality). It wasn’t until early 2015 when it got resurrected again and this time with a website.
The website was up for one year, there was interest in the project — strangers tweeted to me and wrote to me but no real participation. I needed the first person to submit their project. One person actually did a project but didn’t share it. When the domain expired after one year, with all the hours invested in designing a site, publishing articles to the site, the 1st projects, paying for hosting and for a domain name it was placed on hold again.
In the first part of the article (this article was originally published in two parts on Medium), I spoke about the evolution of the idea and now here is the whole kit and kaboodle —
INTENTION — To build a memorial in the virtual and physical worlds as a place of remembrance, reflection, experimentation and connection.
The Sin-Eater is an interactive virtual memorial created by its participants.
Participants are called to action through a series of creative exercises posted on the internet. The resulting creations (collage, painting, drawing, video, audio, photographs, etc.) to be photographed or recorded and submitted to a website, where they will be shared publicly through various outlets including:
- the Sin-Eater’s site
2. social media
3. exhibition space
Active participation demands that the participants are not only consumers of culture but the creators of it as well. In the end, the goal is to
1. provoke a critical dialogue about the existing social and political structures; specifically regarding our notions about a memorial as a form of public art and how it will be used,
2. call into question how death is viewed, celebrated and/or ignored in contemporary society (specifically in the Western Hemisphere.),
3. aid in healing, creating a space to mourn the loss of those we have loved and lost.
CONCEPT-the project is a monument to memory in virtual space.
Unlike a typical three-dimensional monument, built in physical space, which commemorates an event or a significant group of people, the monument is built in a virtual space to honor the people who died for reasons normally associated with the feeling of shame and considered taboo (i.e. overdose, suicide, who contracted AIDS from shared needles, drug addiction, in the context of violence etc.) In this sphere, it is often forgotten that these individuals had families, partners, people who loved them and the unspoken shame associated with this essentially means that the people that are left behind are often unable to fully grieve or are left feeling angry or shamed since the deceased are not honored in the public eye.
Releasing Shame, Releasing Blame
Furthermore, the memorial also questions the concepts of place and memory. The places, events and memories related to the lives of these people (both the creators and memorialized) constitute the foundations of the project. We may have a sense of time and place in our memories but time tampers with our memories. Memories are open to interpretation. Memory is prejudiced in that it is somethng personal and within the context of a specific persons reality. How we view the world is never objective.
Place & Memory
To those creating the memorial, the concept of place is meaningful. Yet, place is beyond geography, it is a memory encased in emotion, perverted by our personal experience. However, within the context of the memorial, place becomes meaningless because the memorial is virtual, thereby it is everywhere (and no where.)
Everywhere & No Where
How it works: After posting a short video explaining the basis of the project, each month, 2x each month during a period of 12–18 months new creative exercises will be posted. Anyone can complete and sumbit an exercise. All of contributions from the public will be posted individually as they come in. Contributions can be public or anonymous. Some works will be compiled into new multi-media works, for example , a series of collage images may be brought together to compose a video or a mix of audio files will be edited together.
My role:
1. Create a quasi-narrative piece (video montage)-using a number of original visual representations created pictures with this theme and combined with audio, song titles and will be published on YouTube and the website created for this project, this being the starting point.
2. Create a series of expressive paintings, photographs and other media that will be accompany some of the exercises and will used as basis for some of the exercises and/or to be used in the explanitory video montage. These will not be examples of what the public will create but illustrative ideas about death culture — i.e. images from Day of the Dead, historical references, emotions, etc. Some of these images to be used to create the video described in #1.
3. Create and curate the site
Public’s/Contributor’s Roles
1. Complete and submit creative exercises.
2. Participate in conversation if so desired through social media or commenting on the site.
Examples of the CREATIVE EXERCISES or Public Projects
Each project is based on a public question or a quote that expresses an idea. They will be presented through multi-media works, short which would explain the concept and what measures should be taken to complete it. In the following, we enumerate some ideas for public projects:
I. Write a short biography of this person-maximum 100 words. Then you’ll have to read the biography aloud and record it as an audio. Submit the audio file to the site.
II. Create a ritual to honour this person and while performing the ritual, record it on video or photo. Present the JPEGs or videos.
III. Make a collage of images or 20 adjectives to describe this person-from a newspaper, a magazine or from a personal collection. Scanning or photographing and submitting the file.
IV. Make a shadow box with the author’s feelings about this person by using the objects found. Photographing and submitting the file.
V. Sharing a memory about that person with someone else. After this will be a collage of colours (using paper, paint or objects found), which describe the author’s emotions regarding this experience.
VI. Writing a letter from this person- what would like to say? scanning, photographing or listing it resulting in a JPEG image file, is sent to the site.
VII. Presentation of an image with the person that you can lose (enlarge and photocopy an image). The photocopy of the image will be superimposed on a large piece of paper. Around the image will draw, paint or paste images from magazines or newspapers.
Is the sin-eater starving? or do you want to feed him?
If you’ve read part I, you’ll know that although there was interest and a website no one participated — I promoted the idea on social media and published at least 20 articles on the site but still it just didn’t happen. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings in the comments.