March 11, 2023, marked three years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since then, almost 7 million people have died from the virus worldwide, including 200,000 in the UK. Ceramic artist and art historian Julian Stair knew this was an event he had to commemorate. For an exhibition at the Sainsbury Center at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, Stair used ceramics to bring death to the forefront of public conversation and honor the lives of eight people with cinerary jars.
Last fall, Stair and his team called for volunteers to donate a loved one’s ashes to be part of the sculptures. (Stair and his team have decided not to limit their pool to those whose loved ones have died of COVID-19 or even in the past few years.) Seven families donated the ashes of family members for Stair’s show , working with Stair and bereavement counseling organizations Cruse Bereavement and Norwich Death Cafe to decide how to incorporate the ashes into the works and support them through the emotional process.
On view until September 17 Julian Stair: Art, Death and the Afterlife features 30 new works by the artist, including eight monumental sculptures (up to 6.5 feet tall), seven embodied vessels, and several smaller pieces. With curves that mimic the human form, his ceramics draw on the age-old practice of using clay to honor the dead. Stair has curated a selection of contemporary and historic works from the Sainsbury Center collection that also deal with mortality, such as ancient Cycladic marble figures and the pottery of Madeleine Odundo.
Staircase says Hyperallergic that the impact of the immense losses from the pandemic was the impetus for his show at the Sainsbury Centre. He thinks the public needs to adequately recognize the emotional and psychological toll of such a loss. Through his art, he hopes to address this sensitive subject.
“Art has the ability to address the subject of death – what New York-based English philosopher Simon Critchley describes as ‘the last great taboo’,” he said.
Stair used these conversations with family members to inform his creative process, playing with shape, color and finish to reflect each person who died. Following the exhibition, the families will have their ashes returned, now commemorated by a cinerary jar.
“This project gave families specific purpose and subsequently agency in the unpredictable and destabilizing nature of bereavement,” Stair said.
