Congratulations and Appreciation to the
Thanatopolis Artists/Prize Winners for
Their Wonderful Music, Installations,
Performances, Ideas and Spirit


Music Composition/Sound Sculpture

 

Memorial Composition:  Jack DW Ballard, Jr., Ohio, Lament

Processional:  Rohan De Livera, United Kingdom, Remembrance

Tone Sequence:  Nuno Rebelo, Spain, Chamamento

Ritual Adieux:  Jennifer Higdon, Pennsylvania, Soliloquy
                         Monica Houghton, Ohio, Quase Um Soneto

Thanatopolis Concert:  Tricia Minty, California, Wicked Dreams

                                      Sumiko Sato, Japan, Misthaven

Sound Sculpture:  Elise Morris, New York, Dawn

Thanatopolis Noir:  Todd Merrell, Connecticut, The Last Transmission

 

Physical/Land Projects/Installations

 

Norbert Francis Attard, Malta, Grave Field

Paul Bagley, Oklahoma, Symbiosis
François Fréchet, France, Free as a Bird
Terra Goolsby, Rhode Island,
   From Landscape to Culture, From Culture to Landscape
Pulling Together/Legends of Willimantic/Weighing Anchor Group,
   New York, Connecticut, The Citizen Shipwrights of Willimantic, CT
Andrea Thompson, Massachussets, Dream Eyries
Alison Williams, New Hampshire, Reliquary for Five

 

Performance/Ritual

 

Kathy Bruce, New York, Landscape as Costume (Burial Robe)
Kelly Hanson, New York, Against the Dying of the Light
Jordan McKenzie, in absentia*, United Kingdom, Gathering of the Breath
Noa Sagie, New York, Fragments
Teresa Smith, New York, Companionship of Memory

Paper/Future Project

 

Marco Dessardo, France, A TUMP for Thanatopolis
Claudia Dinep, Connecticut, (trans)Migration Garden
James Dinh, California, Lines in the Woods
Cecil Howell, California, Senescence
Elena Kalman, Connecticut, Proposed Architectural Complex
Amanda Martin Katz, New York, Penn Yan/Elegy
KS3: Myung-Sun Kim, Joy Shipman, Clara Shipman, John Shipman,
   Rhode Island, Canada, Leaves of Grass
Benjamin Monette & Emily McCoy, Pennsylvania, Re-compose
Brendan Ravenhill, California, A Vehicle for Remembrance
Georgianna Wells, New York, Impressions

 

Guest Artists

 

Miya Ando, New York, Obon [Meditation 1-8]
Holly Ewald, Rhode Island, Twins
Carolina Rubio-MacWright, New York, Drifting Love
Nhan Nguyen, Canada, Calling for the Widow Ba

What is Thanatopolis? • a special space for creating serious, fitting, moving memorials to individuals from all levels of society, a place where the longing to create and do something meaningful for the deceased can be satisfied • a physical place, a concept and appropriate imagery for attenuating memory • a harness/focal point for the agony and creativity unleashed by death • a natural setting for experimentation in the rituals of interment and memorialization • a new home for the ‘living memorial’ idea • an integral, dynamic aesthetic element within the I-Park environment • a source of commission opportunities for sculptors, garden designers, environmental artists • an approach to memorialization that’s relevant to our time     -  bringing the memorial park out of the shadows and back to its        rightful place in the culture     -  returning high art to the cemetery     -  visually, environmentally reengaging the death/life cycle • a funding source for the contemporary arts programs at I-Park

 
The Thanatopolis Exhibition

The Thanatopolis Exhibition on Saturday, October 9, 2010 is an inter-disciplinary art project.  It is intended to showcase – visually and aurally – new and interesting ways to re-imagine our culture’s, and our personal, relationship to death, memory and memorialization.  The Exhibition will foreshadow the look and feel of a future memorial park on the I-Park grounds.

To be clear, the Thanatopolis Symposium in July is a separate, mainly private, event that will investigate and challenge the underlying premises of Thanatopolis.  But it will give shape to the Exhibition by sharpening the mission and identity of Thanatopolis and by bringing a measure of coherence to the many ideas and proposals from the various disciplines represented.  

I-Park is soliciting proposals that will advance the Thanatopolis project, including concepts that address specific commission elements (see links below).  But proposals are also welcome that respond to the spirit of the Thanatopolis project in ways perhaps as yet unforeseen. 

Memorial-themed proposals will be evaluated by a distinguished Selection Panel on the basis of creativity, cultural relevance, site responsiveness, feasibility and efficacy in evoking, nurturing and attenuating memory.

For discipline-specific and other commission opportunities and information, click on the links below:

Music Composition/Thanatopolis Prize Visual Arts/Environmental Sculpture Landscape/Garden Design Theater, Choreography, Performance Art Architecture The Gaudí Memorial  FAQ, Project Constraints

Why Thanatopolis? The Site Special Projects Thanatopolis Symposium Symposium Photos Iconic Cemeteries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The image in the header above is by French artist François Fréchet. Entitled ‘Le Passe-rivière,’ this piece was installed in Le Gorneton in 2007. The second image in the body of the page is also by Fréchet. Entitled, 'Stellaria viminalis', this work was installed in Velleneuve lez Avignon, France. These are presented here in the spirit of suggesting the character of projects that might be appropriate for the Thanatopolis Exhibition.

The image above represents a conceptual proposal for re-imagining the existing Thanatopolis landscape by German artist Cornelia Konrads. Sincere thanks to Cornelia and François for permission to share their images on this page.