Death: the Human Experience
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
This thought-provoking show aims to widen our understanding of how different cultures deal with death and dying, says Zoe Dennington
The opening of Death: the Human Experience on 24 October 2015 coincided with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery’s annual Day of the Dead celebrations. A huge ofrenda (an altar traditionally erected in Mexican people’s homes to celebrate the public holiday) filled the museum’s lobby, laden with flowers, photographs and other offerings.
Students from the University of Bristol’s Mexican Society were on hand to explain the significance of the Day of the Dead holiday, which celebrates the lives of dead friends and family. Rather than being a sad occasion, it is a time for eating, drinking and sharing memories – a world away from the sombre approach to mourning that is present in many western societies.
It is an exuberant start to an exhibition that explores our experiences of death, bringing together objects from across the world to do so. Taking its cue from Mexican culture, the show confronts the spectre of death, rather than anxiously looking the other way, portraying the subject with rare objectivity.
The exhibition seems to have struck a chord with visitors, with 10,000 reportedly coming through the doors in the first fortnight. The show, on until 13 March, has no age limit, but recommends that children under the age of 14 are accompanied by an adult. The gallery space has been divided into smaller sections, with the more upsetting content contained in discreet areas with warnings.
A diverse range of people were enjoying the exhibition when I visited: a group of younger visitors were avidly discussing the displays and how they would like to be remembered after death; a woman and her young daughter were using the audio pens to listen to the interpretation while marvelling at the huge Nigerian “fantasy coffin” in the shape of a lion that dominates the gallery’s central display. The gallery is small, but the space has been used creatively. The long walkway that leads into the exhibition is lined with pink satin curtains reminiscent of a glitzy funeral parlour.
Euphemisms for death (such as “pushing up the daisies” and “popped his clogs”) dance over the dark floor, and the walls are lined with symbols of death from around the world. A bat skeleton, wing bones delicately extended, shares a glass bell jar with a crow and a grinning Mexican foil skeleton. Representations of death from art and literature create an atmosphere of gothic intrigue, reminding us of our cultural baggage.
Physical aspect
A stark contrast is created when you turn the corner into an area that examines the physical process of death. A mortuary table from Bristol General Hospital takes centre stage with a human-shaped form draped in a pristine white burial shroud suspended above it. The exhibition interpretation here gives information about the legal and medical processes that occur when someone dies. The shroud, we are told, is an example of Muslim burial clothes and is accompanied by information about how the deceased are prepared for burial at Bristol’s Easton Mosque.
Visitors are invited to open mortuary drawers, revealing text and footage of medical experts discussing when exactly, in physical terms, death occurs: when the heart stops? When breathing stops? When brain stem activity ceases? Or when, as the Torajan people of Indonesia believe, the body has decomposed? The cross-cultural comparisons make an attempt to broaden our idea of death beyond our own experience.
A case focusing on grave objects draws a strand of continuity between cultures that are both geographically and historically distant. Pots and combs from an Inca graveyard are displayed alongside grave items from contemporary Peru: tiny plastic flowers and miniature bottles of the soft drink Inca Kola. A bag of Mint Imperials is accompanied by a story about a grandfather whose family remembered him buying sweets every morning along with his newspaper. A pair of dancing shoes stand in for those buried alongside a lady who “waltzed her way through the last years of her life”. There is something comforting about these small objects buried with loved ones in the hope of better equipping them for the perceived afterlife.
Remains to be seen
One of the more unsettling areas of the exhibition deals with human remains and includes rarely displayed items from the museum’s collection. The practice of burying or cremating the dead is compared with instances in which human remains continue to play a role in the lives of the living. A “trophy head” from Papua New Guinea is displayed alongside a Blackfoot warrior’s hide shirt, embellished with a human scalp.
Controversy around museums showing such objects is touched on, with the copy of a preserved Maori head displayed with a label explaining that the original, once in the museum’s collection, has been repatriated to New Zealand.
Despite the careful interpretation, this collection of objects retains an air of the cabinet of curiosities, which I find problematic. Without space for a deeper exploration of the cultural significance of these objects, I worry that the display might do more to cement tired stereotypes than to widen visitors’ understanding.
One of the most visually rich displays explores funerals and mourning around the world. Funerary masks and headdresses from Ghana and Nigeria sit alongside mourning clothes and a shimmering silk sari. For me, this display is at its most intriguing when these diverse funeral rights are related to those of Bristol’s local communities. Funeral prayer books from Buddhist and Jewish ceremonies are included, and a Jamaican flag represents the objects sometimes buried with people as a marker of their cultural identity. These small insights give a fascinating glimpse into how death is marked by different communities in the city – I wish more had been made of these local connections.
Ethical issues
The final section of the exhibition explores science and ethics, the medicalisation of death and our opinion on issues such as assisted dying and how long life should be artificially prolonged.
Appropriately, this is followed by a space for quiet reflection. Visitors are invited to leave comments and read the notes left by others. People have taken the opportunity to remember the lives of loved ones, consider their funeral plans or comment on ethical dilemmas such as assisted dying.
The exhibition is ambitious in its attempt to tackle one of the great universal of human experiences. The creative use of a small space has allowed for rich displays, full of interesting snippets that challenge our preconceptions about death and the process of dying. The magnitude of the topic prevents some debates from being dealt with in depth, but the exhibition is successful in beginning a conversation about death that we would do well to continue.
As the Mexican saying goes, “Nacer es empezar a morir”, or “Birth is the beginning of death”, and we’ve all got to go some time.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
When we started, death was a subject that interested us in the broadest of senses and we thought it would make a great visual experience for the visitor. However, during the research process we met some of the most amazing and inspiring people in the “death world” – funeral celebrants, hospice workers, palliative care doctors, academics and advocates in the field of death studies and the “death positive” movement – who transformed our way of thinking about this subject.
It was obvious we would use our collections to look at how different people across the world and across time have viewed the subject, but we never knew how involved we would get with issues as diverse as assisted dying and the natural burial movement. It became clear that death, aside from its fascinating material culture, could be explored in a way that questions people’s preconceptions and expectations. What is a “good” death? What do human remains mean to us? How do we want to live with death?
Ultimately, the slogan of the Dying Matters Coalition, “Dying Matters – Let’s Talk About It”, became the emphasis of the exhibition. The one message we wanted visitors to leave with is that it is OK to talk about death. Yes, it can be painful and facing our fears is never easy, but just as we’ve had our emotional ups and downs creating the exhibition, we hoped visitors would be inspired to take that message home.
We have heard from so many people that they have started planning their funerals or speaking to their loved ones about what they do and don’t want at the end of their life that we think we’ve hit the spot with what we wanted to achieve.
Lisa Graves and Amber Druce are the curators of Death: the Human Experience
Cost £98,000
Exhibition sponsor Co-operative Funeralcare
Exhibition support Wellcome Trust; Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives; Bristol and Avon Archaeology Society
Exhibition design in-house
Audiovisuals Floating Harbour
Exhibition build Beaufort Bespoke; Bristol Museums Galleries & Archives technical team
Exhibition ends 13 March
Admission pay what you want
The opening of Death: the Human Experience on 24 October 2015 coincided with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery’s annual Day of the Dead celebrations. A huge ofrenda (an altar traditionally erected in Mexican people’s homes to celebrate the public holiday) filled the museum’s lobby, laden with flowers, photographs and other offerings.
Students from the University of Bristol’s Mexican Society were on hand to explain the significance of the Day of the Dead holiday, which celebrates the lives of dead friends and family. Rather than being a sad occasion, it is a time for eating, drinking and sharing memories – a world away from the sombre approach to mourning that is present in many western societies.
It is an exuberant start to an exhibition that explores our experiences of death, bringing together objects from across the world to do so. Taking its cue from Mexican culture, the show confronts the spectre of death, rather than anxiously looking the other way, portraying the subject with rare objectivity.
The exhibition seems to have struck a chord with visitors, with 10,000 reportedly coming through the doors in the first fortnight. The show, on until 13 March, has no age limit, but recommends that children under the age of 14 are accompanied by an adult. The gallery space has been divided into smaller sections, with the more upsetting content contained in discreet areas with warnings.
A diverse range of people were enjoying the exhibition when I visited: a group of younger visitors were avidly discussing the displays and how they would like to be remembered after death; a woman and her young daughter were using the audio pens to listen to the interpretation while marvelling at the huge Nigerian “fantasy coffin” in the shape of a lion that dominates the gallery’s central display. The gallery is small, but the space has been used creatively. The long walkway that leads into the exhibition is lined with pink satin curtains reminiscent of a glitzy funeral parlour.
Euphemisms for death (such as “pushing up the daisies” and “popped his clogs”) dance over the dark floor, and the walls are lined with symbols of death from around the world. A bat skeleton, wing bones delicately extended, shares a glass bell jar with a crow and a grinning Mexican foil skeleton. Representations of death from art and literature create an atmosphere of gothic intrigue, reminding us of our cultural baggage.
Physical aspect
A stark contrast is created when you turn the corner into an area that examines the physical process of death. A mortuary table from Bristol General Hospital takes centre stage with a human-shaped form draped in a pristine white burial shroud suspended above it. The exhibition interpretation here gives information about the legal and medical processes that occur when someone dies. The shroud, we are told, is an example of Muslim burial clothes and is accompanied by information about how the deceased are prepared for burial at Bristol’s Easton Mosque.
Visitors are invited to open mortuary drawers, revealing text and footage of medical experts discussing when exactly, in physical terms, death occurs: when the heart stops? When breathing stops? When brain stem activity ceases? Or when, as the Torajan people of Indonesia believe, the body has decomposed? The cross-cultural comparisons make an attempt to broaden our idea of death beyond our own experience.
A case focusing on grave objects draws a strand of continuity between cultures that are both geographically and historically distant. Pots and combs from an Inca graveyard are displayed alongside grave items from contemporary Peru: tiny plastic flowers and miniature bottles of the soft drink Inca Kola. A bag of Mint Imperials is accompanied by a story about a grandfather whose family remembered him buying sweets every morning along with his newspaper. A pair of dancing shoes stand in for those buried alongside a lady who “waltzed her way through the last years of her life”. There is something comforting about these small objects buried with loved ones in the hope of better equipping them for the perceived afterlife.
Remains to be seen
One of the more unsettling areas of the exhibition deals with human remains and includes rarely displayed items from the museum’s collection. The practice of burying or cremating the dead is compared with instances in which human remains continue to play a role in the lives of the living. A “trophy head” from Papua New Guinea is displayed alongside a Blackfoot warrior’s hide shirt, embellished with a human scalp.
Controversy around museums showing such objects is touched on, with the copy of a preserved Maori head displayed with a label explaining that the original, once in the museum’s collection, has been repatriated to New Zealand.
Despite the careful interpretation, this collection of objects retains an air of the cabinet of curiosities, which I find problematic. Without space for a deeper exploration of the cultural significance of these objects, I worry that the display might do more to cement tired stereotypes than to widen visitors’ understanding.
One of the most visually rich displays explores funerals and mourning around the world. Funerary masks and headdresses from Ghana and Nigeria sit alongside mourning clothes and a shimmering silk sari. For me, this display is at its most intriguing when these diverse funeral rights are related to those of Bristol’s local communities. Funeral prayer books from Buddhist and Jewish ceremonies are included, and a Jamaican flag represents the objects sometimes buried with people as a marker of their cultural identity. These small insights give a fascinating glimpse into how death is marked by different communities in the city – I wish more had been made of these local connections.
Ethical issues
The final section of the exhibition explores science and ethics, the medicalisation of death and our opinion on issues such as assisted dying and how long life should be artificially prolonged.
Appropriately, this is followed by a space for quiet reflection. Visitors are invited to leave comments and read the notes left by others. People have taken the opportunity to remember the lives of loved ones, consider their funeral plans or comment on ethical dilemmas such as assisted dying.
The exhibition is ambitious in its attempt to tackle one of the great universal of human experiences. The creative use of a small space has allowed for rich displays, full of interesting snippets that challenge our preconceptions about death and the process of dying. The magnitude of the topic prevents some debates from being dealt with in depth, but the exhibition is successful in beginning a conversation about death that we would do well to continue.
As the Mexican saying goes, “Nacer es empezar a morir”, or “Birth is the beginning of death”, and we’ve all got to go some time.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
Focus on talking about death
When we started, death was a subject that interested us in the broadest of senses and we thought it would make a great visual experience for the visitor. However, during the research process we met some of the most amazing and inspiring people in the “death world” – funeral celebrants, hospice workers, palliative care doctors, academics and advocates in the field of death studies and the “death positive” movement – who transformed our way of thinking about this subject.
It was obvious we would use our collections to look at how different people across the world and across time have viewed the subject, but we never knew how involved we would get with issues as diverse as assisted dying and the natural burial movement. It became clear that death, aside from its fascinating material culture, could be explored in a way that questions people’s preconceptions and expectations. What is a “good” death? What do human remains mean to us? How do we want to live with death?
Ultimately, the slogan of the Dying Matters Coalition, “Dying Matters – Let’s Talk About It”, became the emphasis of the exhibition. The one message we wanted visitors to leave with is that it is OK to talk about death. Yes, it can be painful and facing our fears is never easy, but just as we’ve had our emotional ups and downs creating the exhibition, we hoped visitors would be inspired to take that message home.
We have heard from so many people that they have started planning their funerals or speaking to their loved ones about what they do and don’t want at the end of their life that we think we’ve hit the spot with what we wanted to achieve.
Lisa Graves and Amber Druce are the curators of Death: the Human Experience
Project data
Cost £98,000
Exhibition sponsor Co-operative Funeralcare
Exhibition support Wellcome Trust; Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives; Bristol and Avon Archaeology Society
Exhibition design in-house
Audiovisuals Floating Harbour
Exhibition build Beaufort Bespoke; Bristol Museums Galleries & Archives technical team
Exhibition ends 13 March
Admission pay what you want