Performance 3pm to 4pm
26th November 2011
Camperdown Cemetery
189 Church Street
Newtown 2042
Free admission but RSVP essential:
elodiesilberstein@westnet.com.au
http://elodiesilberstein.blogspot.com/
www.elodiesilberstein.com
Press Release
From 3pm to 4pm on the 26th November, a limited audience will take part in a Victorian funeral procession orchestrated by artists Elodie Silberstein and Patricia Alvarez in Camperdown Cemetery. As would have occurred during a mourning ceremony in the 19th century, the audience will receive a black rosette to wear and mourning cookies to share.
Memorium #2 is to be a part of White Ribbon Day, the Australian campaign which seeks to prevent violence against women. The project investigates the mortality rate arising from domestic violence in the developed world. Intimate partner homicides account for one-fifth of all homicides in Australia. Of these, four out of five involve a man killing his female partner.
http://www.whiteribbon.org.au/uploads/media/Fact%20Sheet%205%20Facts%20and%20Figures%20What%20is%20violence%20against%20women%202009.pdf
During the remembrance ceremony, Elodie Silberstein will position a clay sculpture in the cemetery; this sculpture will steadily decay and in so doing will raise issues of loss, rituality, humanity and collective responsibility. The highlight of the event will be the singing performance of Patricia Alvarez.
During her creative process, Elodie photographed historic cemeteries such as Cimetière du Père Lachaise (France) and La Recoleta cemetery (Argentina). She collected pearl memorial flowers; and post-mortem photography which was used to help people cope with grief. This theatrical celebration of death shows a drastic contrast with that of the contemporary post modern pragmatic and individualist society in which death has disappeared from the familial and social spheres to move into the medical one. Elodie’s creative process is documented on her blog: http://elodiesilberstein.blogspot.com/.
Patricia described the project as “a wonderful opportunity to honour death and the cyclical nature of life. Although the subject matter is sombre and sorrowful, to lead a procession that commemorates life and death is a noble act. The sharing of ritual immortalises the intangible and is a reaffirmation to those that have died, that we too will die, and perhaps see them again. To grieve with others, acknowledges and unifies our connection to nature, and how in life, death is an eternal phenomena”.
Photography by Kent Johnson
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