A Visual Theory of the Soul (2020)

THE CEREMONY

Helen’s drawings were presented to the soil in situ as part of her ceremony to the pauper people buried there. Photographer Andy Brown documented the event.

DRAWINGS

Showed at VOMA space. Directed by Lee Cavaliere former curator of Tate’s collection.

1m x 75 cms.

CHAMAENERION ANGUSTIFOLIUM – Rosebay willowherb
TARAXACUM OFFICINALE – Dandelion

CONVOLVULUS – Bindweed
URTICA DIOICA – Common nettle
ANTHRISCUS SYLVESTRIS – Cow parsley
CRATAEGUS MONOGYNA – Common hawthorn
TRIFOLIUM REPENS – White clover
DIPSACUS FULLONUM – Common teasel

Beneath the grass of Wadsley Church cemetery in north Sheffield lie 2,500 people who died at the South Yorkshire Asylum (later West Riding Asylum and then Wadsley Mental Hospital) between 1872 and 1948. Currently, there is scant evidence of this mass grave: a low stone plaque erected just inside the boundary wall, and a few flat stones placed by relatives of some of the deceased. This is a chapter in local history that has, as yet, gone unmarked.

The artworks A Visual Theory of the Soul, exhibited on this website, are part of Soil and Soul, an ongoing knowledge exchange project that responds to this history. The work brings together researchers, Dr Lizzie Craig-Atkins and Dr Julian Dobson with artist Helen Blejerman for an exploration of presence and absence, death, life, space, and the environment. Bringing together creative practice and expertise in human osteology, death studies and placemaking, Soil and Soul aims to connect with highly topical discourses around mental health and marginality and support a renewed relationship between the local community and the cemetery as an urban green space. The project team contributed to ‘Post-traumatic Landscapes: a two-day cross-sector symposium’ organised by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Sheffield that took place in July.

In November, audiences were invited to download Helen’s podcast about the project as part of Being Human festival.

The project is funded by Arts and Humanities Knowledge Exchange at the University of Sheffield.

Overhead shone the great star of the constellation of Lyra, destined to be the polar star for men who will live tens of thousands of years after we have ceased to be. — Marguerite Yourcenar, Mémoires d’Hadrien.

The work was exhibited at VOMA Space

Curated by Lee Cavaliere, former TATE curator.