THE CEREMONY
In 2020, Mexican-British artist Helen Blejerman created a series of artworks, ‘A Visual Theory of the Soul’, that explored the living flora in a grassy area behind the Wadsley churchyard and commemorated the 2,500 unnamed ‘pauper souls’ buried there from the South Yorkshire Asylum. After researching the local weeds and completing the digital paintings, Blejerman took them to the site and silently presented them to the buried bodies. The work was funded by Knowledge Exchange – Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Sheffield University. The artist collaborated with a team of experts from Sheffield University, including forensic anthropologists and human osteologists. For example archaeologist Dr Lizzy Craig Atkins, Senior Lecturer in Human Osteology at the University of Sheffield. The aim was to understand the nature growing in the soil found in burial sites. Blejerman’s research and artwork was presented as a paper at the Post-Traumatic Landscapes conference, Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Sheffield, organised by Dr. Amanda Crawley Jackson, now Dean of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of the Arts London.
The work was exhibited at VOMA Space. Curated by Lee Cavaliere, former TATE curator.
In November, audiences were invited to download Helen’s podcast about the project as part of Being Human festival.
The Arts and Humanities Knowledge Exchange at the University of Sheffield funded the project
Helen Blejerman 