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Visiting the Cemetery

I've visited the cemetery twice more since I last posted. The first visit consisted of me viewing the area in motion, mapping the landscape as I walked and explored as well as keeping track of my own movements while I investigated. I ended up finding a hollowed out bush next to one of the paths, with the graves of children within. It was a peaceful, magical, and profoundly sad place, and I found myself circling it and drawing it, trying to figure out how it was made. There were few other landmarks to note, as I am intentionally avoiding including the physical graves in my map. Cemeteries by very nature are created for the living, so that we may mourn and find a sense of peace with death. The dead do not care where they are housed, and as such I am choosing not to document the locations of the graves, as my interest lies with the living and the present.
I ended up making a sketchy map of every path in the graveyard, connecting and twisting as I saw them in my mind while I walked. The second visit was much more formulaic. I knew that I was interested in the movement of life around the area, but first I needed a solid, proportional map on which to track these movements. I paced the cemetery, measuring the length and width of each section in footsteps. This method of measurement was very intentional; I don't care for the strict dimensions of the area, rather choosing to focus on how people move and walk through the land. When you're exploring you have no sense of how many meters or feet you're traveling, only how many steps you take. I wanted that sense to be expressed in my map.
I copied the finished map onto multiple sheets of paper, with each footstep translating into two millimeters of space.

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 28, 2018 at 5:43 PM

    MC, what a great choice you have made to map the space in footsteps rather than a standard unit of measurement. It alone helps to define the space: there are no cars, bikes, or trains in any cemetery. I also really love your choice to only interact with the living forces in the graveyard. I wonder if, by their absence, the graves will still be present in your map through the patterns of where the living stop to visit them.

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  2. Jeremy AbcugJanuary 28, 2018 at 7:11 PM

    I love this so much, both your different map style and just this overall idea and writing style. The biggest thing that I've noticed from any of my trips to the graveyard over the past couple years is that profound sense of sadness that you've mentioned. It's such a moving experience, and I can see it almost oozing from your writing. Thanks for this and I can't wait to read more!

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