Remember You Are Dust
Lydia Smith
Walking through a cemetery I am peaceful and reminded of my humanity. I feel the presence of history beneath my feet and contemplate who might have also walked the same path before me. As I move past monuments I am not scared of death but curious how we see ourselves in that mysterious moment. The cemetery shows us the way we value the lives around us and how the world’s beauty that can be discovered in deep sadness once those lives have ended.
From August 2015 until the end of July 2016 I traveled on a research scholarship to cemeteries around the world visiting Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Egypt, France, Spain, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. I visited cemeteries Muslim cemeteries in the desert, Buddhist cemeteries in the mountains, Christian cemeteries by the ocean, and secular cemeteries in the middle of large cities surrounded by high rises. I also interviewed historians, crematorium technicians, artists, architects, public officials, cemetery tour guides, and visited gravesites with the family to whom they belonged.
This group of photographs demonstrates the themes, visual patterns, and different cultural attitudes towards death I discovered during my research. There are 14 stations photographs, one for each station of the cross, and are grouped in pairs which hang across the aisle from one another showing connections between places that are often continents apart. When I view these photos placed beneath the Stations of the Cross I am reminded how the inevitability of death subtly influences every aspect of our religious beliefs and way we choose to live our lives.
Cachi Cementerio
Cachi, Argentina
Argentina’s landscape includes snowy glaciers, dense rainforest, a mountain range, flat swamps, grassland, and a lengthy plateau. Images from cemeteries around the country appear very different based on their surrounding environments. The Cachi Cemetery lies on the top of hillside overlooking the small mountain town in the northwestern region of Argentina called “Salta.” The tombs are simple but decorated with patterned tiles one might use for a bathroom floor or kitchen. Wreaths made from colorful plastic flowers adorn wooden crosses on top each of the tombs. Cactuses populate the surrounding mountains and the climate is very dry. This image is very different from what is found in the cemeteries in cities such as Buenos Aires. There Spanish and Italian romantic architectural influence is prominent, but here aspects of Argentinian indigenous culture remains strong. Because this is a rural area time passes more slowly and change never comes quickly.
Faiyum and 6th of October Oasis Maqbara
Cairo, Egypt
Perhaps the most famous tombs in the world are the Egyptian Pyramids in Giza. While contemporary Egypt is a Muslim country, burial is still highly influenced by its celebrated history. This relatively contemporary cemetery is an oasis along the desert road from Cairo to the city of Faiyum. Four walled Mausoleums protect concrete courtyards that contain a sealed passage leading down to vaults beneath the earth. Here men and women are separated into separate rooms and laid to rest half covered in sand. Islamic burial traditionally occurs underground, the body is bathed and draped in a white shroud, and the head is turned towards mecca. Egyptian burial complies with these requirements but is atypical due to its similarity to mausoleums, monumental nature, and decorative aspects.
Memorial and burial must also be adapted to climate and local environment. For example, available raw materials influence the approach of cemetery construction. In the desert red brick is plentiful and green is scarce. That being said, even though the two sites are continents away, this image shows striking similarity the cemetery in Cachi, Argentina. Some patterns are also simply human.
St. Mary and St. Nicholas Freidhof I
Berlin, Germany
Burial takes up space and in European countries, especially cities, this something they cannot afford. For this reason a common practice is to limit the lifespan of a tombstone to 20 years or so (the average decomposition rate). After the designated time passes since the burial and establishment of a monument the family is contacted and asked if they want to renew the plot. If not the gravestone is removed and the plot can be used for a new burial. Of a pile of old broken stones that were recently removed can be found at the at the back of the cemetery.
Today in Berlin less people are being buried on average per year due to longer life spans and there is a sharp rise in the choice of cremation. Berlin has over 200 small cemeteries scattered throughout the area and yet the actual number of marked burials in the city is shrinking. Now the city is dealing with how to repurpose and take advantage of these spaces. Cemeteries are being identified as park space and open-air history museums, cafes and art galleries are popping up in old cemetery buildings and chapels, and some cemeteries are even being reassigned as lots for new community housing projects. As the cemeteries gain these new identities the influx of visitors are forced to confront death in their daily life from a new perspective.
Assistens Kirkegård
Copenhagen, Denmark
Three students restore an old grave monument connected to Assistens cemetery’s outer wall as a part of an apprenticeship class. This collaborative project between the local university and the cemetery helps preserve the historically significant monuments and removes layers of soot from decaying sculpture so that the colors of marble are visible again. Decay is an ever-present theme of the cemetery and a natural part of its the lifecycle. However the motivation for building of a cemetery, preservation of memory, contradicts this nature. The choice to conserve and sustain monuments is time consuming and expensive, an honor left to the rich and famous. How do we honor history and our ancestors when the physical markers of their presence have faded?
San Nicolás de los Arroyos Municipal Cementerio
San Nicolás, Argentina
Religion is the most influential factor when people decide how to be buried. The Catholic Church only recently stopped prohibiting it as a burial option. Historically it was considered by Catholics to be a pagan practice denying Christ’s resurrection. However some cemeteries that profit off caskets and the embalming process rather than a more economic choice have sustained this myth. At the end of the day the cemetery is a business that must look out for its own interests, aware they benefit from the most complicated and ornate burial practices. However the family is the one who ultimately makes the final decision about the burial.
Argentina is an extremely catholic country most people are embalmed and buried in caskets. However in large cities after certain number of years these caskets are removed from a wall of vaults, the bones are condensed into a small ossuary or sometimes the body is even cremated, and then it is moved to a small niche in a wall to conserve space. This same practice happens to old caskets in family mausoleums running out of room. The image above shows a long wall of niches across from rows of mausoleums.
Weißensee Freidhof
Berlin, Germany
When wandering through the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery in Berlin it is impossible notice the thousands graves that will never be visited again by family lines that were terminated during the Holocaust. One of the few places of Jewish culture that was ignored by the Nazis in World War II, many of the large monuments belonging to prominent families from the turn of the century remain standing in the cemetery. Some were even used as hiding places for those fleeing persecution because soldiers were afraid of ghosts and avoided the site at night. A common practice in Jewish Culture is to leave a small stone on top of the grave after visiting marking that the deceased remains alive in the visitor’s memory. During autumn the trees change color and lose their leaves, falling down to cover the cemetery floor and also rest on top edge of the headstones. It is almost as if the earth is saying that it too remembers, a rare witness of time.
Yagoto Bochi
Nagoya, Japan
Every August in Japan people return to their hometowns to visit the graves of their ancestors and relatives during a holiday called Obon. Many cultures have similar traditions such as the most famous festivity in Mexico, Día de Muertos. It is believed during this time spirits of the dead return to the earth to visit and therefore the cemetery acts as a meeting ground. The family washes their tombstone with water, lights a candle, burns incense, lays flowers on the grave, and says a set of prayers thanking and blessing the dead. It is not uncommon to also leave a can of beer, coffee, or a small talisman on the tombstone. Obon is not the only time people visit the cemetery and the grave washing can happen as often as daily as a form of mourning, devotion, and remembrance.
Gävle Skogskyrkogården
Gävle, Sweden
A man opens a door to a cemetery chapel and his reflection is caught in the glass window. While Sweden is notably an atheist country, it maintains many aspects of its Christian history such as its churches, which are often the focal point of the cemetery. In the countryside a church surrounded by a small graveyard, maintained as the community burial ground, marks each town. As these spaces are filled or abandoned, new cemeteries become an interesting and sought after design challenge for architects. Four young architects won the most prestigious award in Swedish architecture for their design of Gävle woodland cemetery chapel and crematorium. The primary materials of the building are glass, wood, and metal, and it blends seamlessly into its thick wooded surroundings. Clean minimalistic design that emphasizes nature is famous in Sweden and corresponds with the general secular humanist philosophy.
Skogskyrkogården – The Woodland Cemetery
Stockholm, Sweden
Loagom is a word essential to Swedish culture that has no English equivalent and translates roughly to “equal” or “just the right amount.” Swedish society values that everyone is treated equally and therefore bragging is looked down upon, even in death. By walking through a cemetery one can pick up subtle attitudes towards life, family, and culture. The tombstones in the Woodland Cemetery of Stockholm are mostly grey square slabs no higher than three feet scattered through a forest of thin towering trees that create a canopy leaves shielding the sun. It is clear that the people feel a deep connection to their natural environment and wish to be humble next to their neighbors.
Cremation is the primary form of burial in Sweden and many people elect to have their ashes scattered in a communal memorial garden called a Minneslund. Names are usually omitted and the knowledge of who actually is scattered there is limited to friends and family. There is a designated space at the memorial ground where visitors can place flowers or light a candle. This anonymous return to the earth is rising in popularity.
Ruriden Columbarium at Koukokuji Buddhist Temple
Tokyo, Japan
At the end of life tradition is comfort. When mourning, solitude can be found through prayers recited by generations and death is not viewed as a revolutionary activity or time to be innovative. As technology advances so that new burial methods emerge and cemetery design changes, will convention inhibit us from being open to adapting new practices?
This image is of an interactive installation at a columbarium in Tokyo connected to a Buddhist temple. Technology and tradition are two antagonistic forces that dominate Japanese culture, and yet this chapel somehow meets in them in the middle. Hundreds of small glass Buddha statues outfitted with LED lights line an octagonal chapel above the columbarium. At the entrance the visitors tap an electronic ID card that indicates which statue belongs to their family member and it illuminates. Slowly the statues around also light up to create colorful patterns as visitors say their prayers at a small altar. The ritual lasts around 15 minutes and fades to black when then visitors leave.
Levon Hautausmaa
Lahti, Finland
Finland has a deep connection to its natural landscape, which saturates every aspect of the culture especially art, design, and music (think Sibelius). During the ice age glaciers moved the earth and left a forest of large boulders now covered with moss in the Levo cemetery. Instead of erecting new monuments, residents select a boulder where ashes will be buried nearby. Iron lettering attached to a think strip of metal indicating the names, date of birth, and date of death of these buried there is a secured to the boulder. Each boulder slowly develops an additional identity and meaning, and is more permanent than any slab of granite. Visitors still leave flowers or small adornments by the grave such as feathers, lanterns, or small porcelain angels as seen in the image.
Okunoin
Koyasan, Japan
Okunoin is Japan’s most famous cemetery and a Unesco World Heritage site that in a small Buddhist town, Koyasan, which lies on the top of a mountain. Here it is said the founder of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, Kukai, sits in eternal meditation. Throughout the cemetery small stone statues dressed with red knitted caps and colorful bibs are nestled into the mossy forest. These “Jizo” statues resemble young diseased children who never reached enlightenment resting in limbo. Visitors offer the statues coins and cover them with clothing to keep them warm, hoping to receive good luck and karma in return. This cemetery is Buddhist but Japanese culture blends religious traditions so that shrines and Temples coexist. People never claim to be exclusively committed to Shintoism, Doaism, or Buddhism, but rather believe everything is worth respecting and practicing. The practice of leaving an offering of money offering to a sculptural representation of a deity is an influence of this interchange.
City of the Dead – Southern Cemetery
Cairo, Egypt
The name for the sprawl of tombs lying in the heart of Cairo is quite paradoxical. While the City of the Dead is indeed a metropolis, the space is more “living” that “dead.” Thousands of people live and work inside the bounds of the cemetery, which contains many historical mosques, small shops, working craftsmen, a school, and even a post office. The first people to live in the cemetery were grave guardians hired by the rich, but desperate families looking for a space to live soon joined them by making shelter in abandoned tombs. From the perspective of Egyptians outside the cemetery is chaotic, dangerous, and taboo to enter. However it is possibly the most peaceful place in Cairo to walk through in the early morning. the residents are simply a close-knit community inhibited by the poverty surrounding them. This photo depicts one of the homes rising out of the cemetery and edging onto the highway above running through. A boy climbs up the stairs heading towards to roof.
Waverley Cemetery
Sydney, Australia
The Cemetery landscape acts as both a map and archive, which reflects trends in aesthetics, times of war and hardship, advances in medicine, and patterns migration. In nations of immigrant such as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States the cemeteries are a constant reminder of population patterns and our diversity. The cemeteries and the traditions of burial belonging to native people are almost obsolete and the colonizers of these nations replaced the traditions with their own. The tombstones of Waverly Cemetery on Sydney’s coastline are identical to the types of monuments one would find in a cemetery in London, despite the different climate and resources. Many of the monuments are slowly falling apart due to the harsh sea breezes and constant humidity. However as a youthful country Australia is open to change and the creation of new tradition. A handful of artists, stonemasons, and engineers are working on developing new monuments and burial technology to reflect the unique cultural diversity and identity developed over time.