Death in America and the Green Cemetery Movement
An Illustrated lecture by funeral director Amy Cunningham
Date: Thursday, November 7
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Location:
Observatory, Brooklyn (543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215)
Each
year in the U.S., the death care industry buries enough formaldehyde to
fill eight Olympic sized swimming pools, enough metal in caskets form
to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete in burial vaults
to construct a two-lane highway running halfway across the country.
While our cemeteries are rich with national and local histories, natural
habitats and remembrances of the dead, they’re also a blazing locus of
waste and pollution.
In tonight's illustrated lecture, funeral
director Amy Cunningham will share the history of American death
practices from Victorian family-centric rituals to contemporary ideas of
the "green cemetery," a grassroots movement dedicated to the
development of ecologically responsible and meaningful end-of-life
rituals.
Amy Cunningham is a New York licensed funeral director
and celebrant who specializes in helping families plan sustainable
end-of-life rituals. A former magazine journalist, she maintains a blog
called
TheInspiredFuneral.com.
_______________________________________________
Ermine Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
Date: Sunday, November 10
Time: 12:00pm - 6pm
Admission: $185
*TICKETS MUST BE PRE-ORDERED AT
http://ermine-taxidermy.brownpapertickets.com/
***Offsite at The Fabricoscope (41 Willow Place, #2, 11201 Brooklyn) (
MAP)
Subway: Court St, Borough Hall, Jay St. Metro Tech.
In
this hands-on class, we will study the wiley ermine! Also known as a
white weasel (they are actually brown in the summer, and turn white in
the winter), this small creature used to be harvested by the hundreds
for the plush robes of royalty-but not so much anymore. It has become
less profitable since they are small animals (and do not yield lots of
fur like the more popular fox or coyote)-so much that the ones used in
class were collected from a game farm and tannery downsizing business
and discarding old stock of unwanted frozen animals. Students will
create a fully-finished mount in a naturalistic or anthropomorphic
position. Students will learn everything involved in producing a
finished mount - from initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary
measures, to proper technique and dry preservation.
The class will teach
how to create a wrapped body form using the ermine's own body as
reference. Students will have the choice of cleaning and reconstructing
the skull, or carving one using the natural one as reference. The use of
anatomical study, reference photos, and detailed observation will also
be reviewed as important tools in recreating the natural poses and
expressions that magically reanimate a specimen. A selection of props
will be provided, however, students are welcome to bring their own bases
and accessories if something specific is desired. All other supplies
will be provided for use in class.
Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.
Divya Anantharaman
is a Brooklyn based artist whose taxidermy practice was sparked by a
lifelong fascination with natural mythology and everyday oddities. After
a journey filled with trial and error, numerous books, and an inspiring
class (Sue Jeiven's popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class at
Observatory!), she has found her calling in creating sickly sweet and
sparkly critters. Beginning with mice and sparrows, her menagerie grew
to include domestic cats, woodchucks, and deer. Recently profiled on
Vice Fringes, the New York Observer, and other publications, she will
also be appearing in the upcoming season of Oddities-and is definitely
up to no good shenanigans. You can find out more at
www.d-i-v-y-a.com
Also, some technical notes:
- We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
- Everyone will be provided with gloves.
- All animals are disease free.
- Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
- All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
- Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.
_______________________________________________
Mother Machine: an ‘Uncanny Valley’ in the Eighteenth Century
Illustrated lecture with Dr. Brandy Schillace
Date: Thursday, November 21
Admission: $8
Time: 8:00 PM
Location:
Observatory, Brooklyn (543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215)
Known
by a variety of names—“this most curious machine,” “this mock woman,”
and the “celebrated Apparatus” —Dr. William Smellie’s mechanized
obstetrical phantom was both science and spectacle in the eighteenth
century. Strangely, however, though crucial to the training of at least
900 man-midwives in ten years, the machine disappears from both the
actual and rhetorical "scene" of 18th-century obstetrical science.
This
illustrated talk will explore the mitigating factors contributing to
the machine's disappearance. Why was such a valuable teaching tool
auctioned to the public after Smellie’s death? Why did famed
obstetrician William Hunter agree to sell his own copy of the machine to
Dr. Foster of the Dublin Rotunda? And why—after so much popular
debate—does the machine disappear from public notice by the latter part
of the century? Dr. Schillace will also document her own rather
circuitous journey of discovery, that is, the necessary labor of
unearthing (if not birthing) a medical artifact’s unusual history.
Dr. Brandy Schillace
is an interdisciplinary, medical-humanist scholar. She writes about
cultural production, history of science, and intersections of medicine
and literature. She is the managing editor of
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry,
an international journal of cross-cultural health research and a guest
curator and blogger for the Dittrick Medical History Museum. Dr.
Schillace was the keynote speaker for the annual meeting of the
Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences 2013, and is
the recent recipient of the Chawton House Library Fellowship (for study
of 18th century women writers) and the Wood Institute travel grant from
the Philadelphia College of Physicians. She has also an edited book
collection under contingent contract with Cambria Press:
Birthing the Monster of Tomorrow: Unnatural Reproductions. For a selection of recently published work, please visit
http://fictionreboot-dailydose.com/publications-and-press.
Image: A
late eighteenth-century “birthing phantom.” Unlike Smellie’s machine,
these were not intended to be exactly like the living body, but rather a
basic replica allowing midwives to understand the position of the child
in the birth canal. By permission of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum
_______________________________________________
“Children of the Night”: Dracula, Degeneration and Syphilitic Births at the Fin de Siècle
Illustrated lecture with Dr. Brandy Schillace and custom cocktails and DJed music by
Friese Undine
Date: Friday, November 22
Admission: $10
Time: 8:00 PM
Location:
Observatory, Brooklyn (543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215)
Bram Stoker’s
Dracula is often read as a narrative of reverse colonization, revealing fears of degeneration at the
fin de siècle.
Anxieties over the decline of empire and—as both symptom and
consequence—the degeneration of masculinity in Victorian Britain
resulted in a number of dystopic narratives, each revealing an uneasy
relationship between evolution and devolution, sexuality, sexual
identity and mental health. However, the signal terror of Stoker’s
vampires lies not only in their overt sexuality and promiscuity—but also
in their fecundity. As Van Helsing warns, the vampire is not a single
foe but a potential army. Both “father” and unnatural mother, Count
Dracula is capable of reproducing the undead—and yet his victims do not,
it seems reproduce themselves.
In this presentation Dr. Schillace
will explore accounts of syphilitic infection as a means of
understanding the complexities of infection among the “innocents,” Lucy
Westenra and the children she victimizes. Culminating in a
re-examination of the only human birth in Stoker’s novel—Mina Harker’s
son Quincy—this project seeks to provide new insight into 19th century
anxieties about degeneration’s naissance.
Dr. Brandy Schillace
is an interdisciplinary, medical-humanist scholar. She writes about
cultural production, history of science, and intersections of medicine
and literature. She is the managing editor of
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry,
an international journal of cross-cultural health research and a guest
curator and blogger for the Dittrick Medical History Museum. Dr.
Schillace was the keynote speaker for the annual meeting of the
Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences 2013, and is
the recent recipient of the Chawton House Library Fellowship (for study
of 18th century women writers) and the Wood Institute travel grant from
the Philadelphia College of Physicians. She also an edited book
collection under contingent contract with Cambria Press:
Birthing the Monster of Tomorrow: Unnatural Reproductions. For a selection of recently published work, please visit
http://fictionreboot-dailydose.com/publications-and-press.
_______________________________________________
Small Rabbit Taxidermy Class "Trophy Plaque" or Full Size Mount with Divya Anantharaman
Date: Sunday, November 24
Time: 12:00pm - 6pm
Admission: $250
*TICKETS MUST BE PRE-ORDERED AT
http://smallrabbittaxidermy.brownpapertickets.com/
***Offsite at The Fabricoscope (41 Willow Place, #2, 11201 Brooklyn) (
MAP)
Subway: Court St, Borough Hall, Jay St. Metro Tech.
In
this intimate, hands-on class (limited to only six students), we will
study the happy and hoppy rabbit! Students will create a fully-finished
rabbit mount in a naturalistic or anthropomorphic position. There is
also the option to create a "trophy style" shoulder mount (where the
head and shoulder is mounted on a wooden plaque). When purchasing
ticket, please specify which you would like to do.
Students will
learn everything involved in producing a finished mount - from initial
preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, to proper technique and dry
preservation. The class will teach how to create a wrapped body form
using the rabbit's own body as reference, and how to reconstruct a
rabbit head using the skull as reference. Students will also be
introduced to the techniques of ear turning and ear carding. The use of
anatomical study, reference photos, and detailed observation will also
be reviewed as important tools in recreating the natural poses and
expressions that magically reanimate a specimen. A selection of props
will be provided, however, students are welcome to bring their own bases
and accessories if something specific is desired. All other supplies
will be provided for use in class.
Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.
Divya Anantharaman
is a Brooklyn based artist whose taxidermy practice was sparked by a
lifelong fascination with natural mythology and everyday oddities. After
a journey filled with trial and error, numerous books, and an inspiring
class (Sue Jeiven's popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class at
Observatory!), she has found her calling in creating sickly sweet and
sparkly critters. Beginning with mice and sparrows, her menagerie grew
to include domestic cats, woodchucks, and deer. Recently profiled on
Vice Fringes, the New York Observer, and other publications, she will
also be appearing in the upcoming season of Oddities-and is definitely
up to no good shenanigans. You can find out more at
www.d-i-v-y-a.com
Also, some technical notes:
- We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
- Everyone will be provided with gloves.
- All animals are disease free.
- Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
- All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
- Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.
