ASHES
in memorium | innate networks by liam david renshaw brown
ashes ritual memory accretion parks
the urban dispersal of earthly remains
Religion is a vessel for rationalising the existential burden of humans. As societies grow increasingly secular, the rituals of death and dying become increasingly important to investigate: ‘[The dead] came to be placed outside daily life, in the modern cemetery, much like the mad came to be placed in the modern asylum.’ 2 Funerary architecture has the capacity to strengthen the dialogue of mortality within the city. Currently a private and insular space of the uncanny domestic, it has the potential to reconnect the presence of death within the network of the living. This project, set hypothetically in Toronto, explores the intersections of mortality, community and mythology. ‘We do not sufficiently celebrate water and the land through which it flows. To celebrate watersheds means to celebrate life.’ 3 In Toronto, a mythology has developed around the uncovering and celebration of buried rivers such as Garrison and Taddle Creek, the Riverdale Streams and the buried Lakeshore. Groups of people walk and trace the surface routes of these rivers, others illegally explore subterranean storm water and sewer systems that buried and enclosed these natural water courses in the late 1800s. ‘There is the mythology that relates you to your nature and to the natural world, of which you’re a part. And there is the mythology that is strictly sociological, linking you to a particular society.’ 4 Water is a connective body, associative for all people in a city, both literally and figuratively. It is simultaneously a symbol of life and death; often referenced as a threshold or bridge between the realms of the living and the dead. The often seen, nostalgic appropriation of Toronto’s rivers in the form of bronzed placards and memory walks is rejected by architects James Brown and Kim Storey – such nostalgia does nothing to reconnect citizens to
‘We find that the much-abused and all pervading dust, which, when too freely produced, deteriorates our climate and brings us dirt, discomfort and even disease, is, nevertheless, under natural conditions, an essential portion of the economy of nature.’ 1 Dirt and its minute constituent, dust, are amongst the most common artifacts of the city. Despite their negative connotations they are generator and proof of life respectively. By association, dirt is also indicative of waste and decay. It is the remnant of abject matter; something altogether cast-off. In these definitions, dirt embodies elements of both life and death. The ashes of human remains are that dirt or dust made sacred. The reduction of the familiar body to a waste material creates a paradox of the dual meanings of dirt. Ashes are to be dispersed, but their sacred nature creates a desire to keep them close. The creation of ashes in North America follows a consistent process. The deceased is typically memorialised at a memorial chapel or funeral home, cremated and returned to the bereaved. The ashes are then dispersed, entombed or interred, the latter options occurring at a cemetery. North American cemeteries were traditionally located on the periphery of cities. During the twentieth-century urban sprawl has approached or consumed these rural places of reflection. The result is a patchwork of park-like conditions that range in their accessibility. Some cemeteries are used for leisure in addition to memorial, but many are forgotten, gated or unapproachable. In conjunction, the institutionalisation of the health and death-care industries has created an obscuring of the presence of death in the North American city. Death and its processes are altogether marginalised. This heightens fear of death and weakens the ability to resolve grief and loss, especially in the portion of the population that is without religious affiliation.
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