A Psychogeography of Mourning

A Psychogeography of Mourning is an observational film documenting the effects of time on grave markers. It was filmed at cemeteries in Chicago, Atlanta, Edinburgh, London and Paris and is set to a haunting, experimental score by Chris Connelly (www.chrisconnelly.com), a musician with a forty-five-year career and significant following.

Psychogeography is a specialized term connecting urban wanderers to the sites of historical events. It describes the psychological relationship between people and place, grounded in a belief that events from the past imprint themselves on their environment. In less esoteric term it is how our knowledge of history shapes public and private spaces.

Wandering the cemetery grounds offers the bereaved an analogous opportunity to explore the past, navigating a physical roadmap to exorcise their grief. The difference is that wherever one turns in a cemetery, one is met with monuments to lost love and while these give the impression of stasis and permanence, the ravages of time are evident. Monuments erode, sink, crack or fall while nature overtakes them. The combination of old and new grave markers reminds the bereaved that their individual loss belongs to a cosmic cycle and our lives are punctuated by memories with our most cherished people. Memories - like cemeteries – are crowded with ghosts.