Mine the Mountain 1

Venues

The Town Hall Gallery
Deadman's Walk
University of Oxford Botanic Gardens

The Town Hall Gallery

David of Oxford, a noted 13th century Jewish financier, owned a house on the Town Hall site. Up until 1300, St. Aldates on which the Town Hall stands was known as Great Jewry on account of the many houses occupied by Jews.
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Deadman's Walk

The name ‘Deadman’s Walk’ derives from the 13th century, when Jews would carry their dead along this route from the mediaeval Jewish Quarter around modern-day St. Aldates, to their burial ground in what is now the Botanic Gardens.

Funerals are of course occasions when attention is turned towards the deceased individual and it’s this focus upon the individual I wish to consider with this work, examining, as we walk the route of those mediaeval mourners, what we, as individuals are made of.

‘Deadman’s Walk’ would appear to be a contradiction in terms, but being as we comprise a part of everyone of our ancestors, we can say that the dead do indeed walk.

Walking is part of this work; as we think of the dead and our own mortality, we are once both mourners and mourned. And in contemplating our non-existence (death), so life becomes more precious, the world around us even more beautiful, and when we consider our ancestors, and the unlikelihood of our individual birth, that contrast is heightened further still.

Furthermore, this understanding of the miracle of the individual, asks us to question our attitude to others.

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University of Oxford Botanic Gardens

The Botanic Gardens stand on the site of the 13th century Jewish cemetery, in use until the expulsion of the Jews by Edward I in 1290.

I have always been interested in the changing roles of places, not only sites such as this (once a cemetery, now a garden), but those such as Auschwitz-Birkenau; once the Polish village of Brzezinka, it became the infamous Nazi factory of death; now it’s a memorial to its more than 1 million victims. As we walk the surface in places such as these, we might consider what lies beneath and behind our footsteps; a mountain - the anonymous mass of history, comprising amongst others our own ancestors - on top of which we are standing.

In Jewish custom, it is traditional to cover mirrors during mourning, thereby focussing the mourner’s attention on those who have passed away rather than the self. In this work, 100 veiled mirrors are planted in the ground, surface markers for something beneath (and behind) our footsteps. In the mirrors we see our vague reflections but the veils caution us to first consider others.

Only when the veils are removed, when we see our clear reflections can we consider ourselves again - individuals, as much a part of history as all who’ve gone before.

Volunteers are required to take part in the next phase of 100 Mirrors. 100 people will each receive one of the mirrors. They will be asked to unveil it in a place of their choosing and to share their responses on the Mine the Mountain website. If you would like to take part, please email: 100mirrors@minethemountain.org or leave your details at the Town Hall Gallery during the run of the Mine the Mountain exhibition.