While the colour black is a well-known symbol of mourning, the Bytown Museum’s latest exhibition, Dearly Departed delves further into the mysterious realm of death and remembrance using unexpected resources and inspiration.
This exhibition examines the importance of mourning customs of the Victorian era.
Artist Cindy Stelmackowich created contemporary art pieces inspired by artifacts from the 19th century, offering a more modern take on the past.
Museum treasurer Glen Shackleton calls the exhibit “exciting, as it is an opportunity to merge history with art.”
The exhibition also includes artifacts of the 19th century—using hair pieces, jewellery, black clothing and poetry as a focus. Stelmackowich paired her contemporary art pieces with the historical artifacts not to juxtapose, but to complement one another.
One print layered poetic lines from mourning booklets over pale illustrations of the human body. It also had synthetic hair braided into circles to represent eternity.
Hair was important in the Victorian era.
“It was like the ultimate personal memento. People would give locks of hair to the ones they loved . . . or make a piece of jewellery with their own hair,” says Stelmackowich.
Hair was treasured for its durability beyond the human lifespan. While the human body is delicate, hair represented “remembrance and love,” says Shackleton.
“Now, people think hair is creepy and strange, but here it’s turned into something beautiful,” he adds.
Stelmackowich says nature had an important influence in the 19th century, too.
“For Victorians to be gentlemen they had to understand nature,” she says, as it helped them to understand themselves.
Stelmackowich combined elements of nature with traditional funeral symbols.
For example, one of her pieces is an obelisk covered with butterfly wings.
A lot of work goes into creating an exhibition like this —from researching artifacts and co-ordinating with the artist to choosing what piece goes where, explains acting curator Judith Parker.
“In the last few days a lot of things happen; a lot of fine-tuning,” she says.
Parker says so much thought is put into every piece in the exhibition and its positioning in the room.
Everything has a purpose, even the wall colour, which is purple for Dearly Departed.
“Purple was a colour used in Victorian mourning . . . if it wasn’t black, it was purple,” says Parker.
Stelmackowich was chosen for this exhibition “because of her work done previously with 19th Century artifacts and turning them into contemporary art,” says Parker.
The exhibition was the result of Stelmackowich’s artist residency with the Bytown Museum.