Immortalizing the Mortal: Art in the Service of Death

 

The meaning we give objects has an important basis in both culture and in our direct experience with them. Thus, meaning may vary between individuals and in different contexts: at the Maude Abbott Medical Museum, for example, we could just as easily be in a Shrine paying respect to the remains of those who suffered instead of a display area meant to learn about disease. As an extension of this idea, an object may have more than one meaning at the same time, depending on one's point of view.

 

The task proposed in this project is to consider another aspect of a specimen obtained by the Medical Museum. The goal is to bring through art - poetry, sketch, photography, dance, or other medium - a meaning to the specimen other than the medical one which it was first intended to show – to tell the story and “clothe in flesh” the person behind the disease.