Crossbones

Crossbones Graveyard in Borough holds the remains of an estimated 15,000 paupers, mostly women and children. An unconsecrated burial ground, It was the final resting place for the prostitutes who lived and worked in the area. Denied a Christian burial, these women were buried along with the city’s poor and outcasts in a mass grave which became so overcrowded that it was deemed a public heath hazard and forced to close.

Lay forgotten for over a century, it is now marked with a garden of remembrance and monthly vigils to honour the forgotten dead and refresh the shrine.

I was curious about the lack of women’s voices in the space, absent from the narrative of even their own death. Using documentary footage of a vigil, I reordered the narrative and intercut this with performative scenes to create a sense of ritual, an offering to honour the women buried there.