The Remembrance Project

"Memory is the place where our vanished days secretly gather. Memory rescues experience from total disappearance."
- John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes.

As we journey onwards in life, more and more spaces within us fill with absence.

Our best hope is that all of us know what to do when someone is dying, caring or grieving. The need for communities to know how to support each other through illness, death and grief has never been more evident with the impact of COVID-19.

It has been the catalyst for many to look more earnestly at their own mortality and that of the people who they care about.

There is a lot of experience and knowledge in our communities about how to do death well. What if we shared that more readily with each other?

To achieve this we need to create safe spaces where deep collective conversations can be had.

Research shows the power of the creative arts in providing both supportive contexts and processes for exploring our life experiences and their impact on our mental health and wellbeing.

The Remembrance Project was an opportunity to reflect on how death shows up in our lives and how our friends among the dead clothed us in weave after weave of blessing.

Over a series of workshops in Margaret River, Balingup and Bunbury, local artists Julieanne Hilbers, Helen Seiver and Christopher Young explored how art can support us in life and in death.

Together with participants, we sat and made string, experimented with natural dye pots and wove together a communal casket/coffin of memories and experiences.

We thank all of those involved for their extraordinary trust, energy and support.

The casket and selected scarves were on show in The Archive Room at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery from July 6 to August 22, 2021.

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