Laid To Rest, 2011
There's a Strange Wind Blowing, 2010
Decosa Tradition Stockholm Keifer/pin, 2010
The Namer of Clouds Lived and Died Here, 2010
How to Dig a Hole and Climb a Mountain, 2009
The Answer Lies at the End of the Line, 2008
The Library of Secrets, 2007
The brick stack
Making bricks at H.G. Matthews
The Brick Keepers
Laid to Rest, The Brick Keepers Dance
Laid to Rest, The Brick Keepers Dance
Laid to Rest
Dust is everywhere, it is part of us and the smallest of visible particles. “Laid to Rest” continues my fascination with the overlooked by transforming dust collected from houses, businesses and institutions into 500 commemorative bricks.
Inspired by the commercialization of waste in Victorian London from the dust heaps of Gray’s Inn Rd to the engineering achievements of Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system. The dust heaps were monuments to the invisible and provided a major source of income. One of the industries to be born out of the heaps was London brick making: ash, cinders and rubbish from the heaps were mixed with the mud of nearby brick fields to produce the humble brick.
Each brick made as part of “Laid to Rest” contains specific dust from the contributing house, business or institution mixed in to clay. Imprinted on each brick are the contributor’s initials cataloguing their transformation from the barely visible to the palpable.
The brick stack will grow over the course of the exhibition and a mythical marching band “The Brick Keepers” will consecrate the bricks combining choral incantations and ritual dance in a tribute to the overlooked and forgotten.
A new film follows the ritual of "The Brick Keepers" performing their dance (developed out of labour related motifs in the brick making process) around Crossness, the fictional home of the brick stack. Crossness is one of the four pumping stations in Bazlagette’s original sewage system. These cleaning majorette’s reanimate this once glorious building nick named the “Cathedral to Waste”: a monument to Victorian pomp and splendor, highlighting the alchemy of transforming waste into gold, an essential part of the capitalist system.
When the brick stack is complete it will be processed through the streets of London and ceremoniously buried, returning the bricks to the earth from where they came.
I have collaborated with composer Daniel O’Sullivan to create the original score for Laid to Rest, which will be part of a limited edition 12” LP at the end of the project.
Performances at the Wellcome Collection:
14th April “The Brick Keepers” perform their choral incantations over the brick stack.
11th June “The Brick Keepers Dance” a ritual dance celebrating the brick stack with choreography developed from everyday routines and labour related movement.
Guardian
"Dust a must as artist Serena Korda creates bricks for exhibition of dirt"
Wellcome Collection
"Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life"