‘Thoughts on Mourning’ Audio Walk Exploring Mourning Heritage and Death Positivity in a Victorian Garden Cemetery

Authors

• Romany Reagan Royal Holloway, University of London

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the evolution of Anglo-American mourning practices from the Victorian era, through the death-denying culture of twentieth century, to today. As a methodology for introducing these themes to visitors to Abney Park cemetery, in Stoke Newington, north London, I have crafted an audio walking practice to engage with these provocations within the space of a Victorian garden cemetery. Throughout my audio walk ‘Thoughts on Mourning’ I interweave Victorian attitudes towards death acceptance into my narrative of the contemporary turn, in certain circles, towards a more accepting view of death, termed the ‘Death Positive’ movement. This audio journey back and forth through time aims to illustrate that the contemporary ‘Death Positive’ movement is actually rooted in, and has similarities to, the Victorian ‘Cult of the Dead’. These concepts of bringing an intimacy with the processes of death back into the processes of mourning are the groundwork on which I built the premise of ‘Thoughts on Mourning’: that Victorian mourning practices help with the grief process more than contemporary death practices of commercialisation, outsourcing, and sequestering of death away from loved ones into an institutional setting. The audio walk format of ‘Thoughts on Mourning’ creates a space for visitors to engage with these themes in a private way, with the environs of the Victorian garden cemetery serving to offer an embodied engagement with death positivity concepts as they walk through the space.