#368: Blank Gravestones
Sculpted space provoking memorial questions
There is a narrow gap: you step through it, twisting your body to the side instinctively. Shuffling through, you enter the walled garden — a cemetery, small, cosy, with concrete walls that reach up towards an open ceiling of sky and trees. It is peaceful, a shelter.
And yet, something is not quite right — as you walk beside the graves, looking for the names of those passed, you realise that there are no names. These may be headstones, with dates, family terms, and last messages of love, but they have no names, only blank boxes carved into the stone. As this realisation dawns on you, the place becomes an unsettling square in the forest, and you look back towards the entrance, in search of an escape, which seems to narrow even as you reach towards it.
What are these blank graves? This is not some Doctor Who episode, or a scene of graveyard vandalism, but a piece of art. It is part of the sculpture trail at Jupiter Artland. This particular piece is titled In Memory, by Nathan Coley. In the brief description, there is a quotation:
“In Memory asks us to think about how we mark lives that are passed.”
What struck me, standing amidst blank headstones, was how easy it was to walk into a seemingly familiar space, and not notice at first glance that the names were missing. This is the impact of sculpted space into which I can walk, a space which destabilises what I think about gravestones as memorial objects. I’ve written about them before — I like walking in graveyards, because they are peaceful. I also enjoy wandering by and reading the names, common and eclectic, thinking about these strangers for whom I am given so few details.
So when the names are gone, are there still memories? These headstones seem to claim so. There are “much loved fathers”, “loving wives”, and “dearly beloved husbands”. They are “taken from us but never forgotten”. Reading that quote carved into the stone becomes eerie rather than comforting when one realises that there there is no one here to remember — they never existed.
Perhaps, in some ways, this artistic piece made me think less about others and more about myself. In an existential moment, I realise that even when faced with stone, which we think of as long lasting, marking lives that are passed by trying to engrave them in memory is only a delay of an eventual forgetting.
So now I wonder: is there a way to mark lives that are passed without relying on unreliable, transient memory? Rather than headstones which sit in a peaceful, and therefore empty, graveyard, are there other ways to mark lives, to honour them, to live up to them? I think of the danger that arises when one is faced with the death of a loved one: the risk of falling into grief, into a pit of memory, and forgetting how to live on.
I don’t have an answer; neither does this artwork. Answers are not the focus here, but like death, it provoked a lot of questions, ones I will continue to ponder, as I live my life, and build more memories.
