Clothes for Death

"Death cannot wait for the clothes, it's the clothes that should wait for death." Kaja (Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina)

Clothes for Death (Odjeca za Smrt) is a research based visual art project documenting women in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina who prepare clothes in which they wish to be buried. Through the project I wanted to explore the relationship of the women (from the region I grew up in) to death and through this further understand their lives, which have been shaped by turbulent historical, political and cultural currents. By gaining a glimpse in their lives, I hope to understand wider social and historical positioning of the women in relation to their domestic spaces, body, clothing, family and community structure.

I was deeply moved upon hearing about this relatively unknown and rather private custom and was besieged by questions which wouldn't leave me: Do women today prepare clothes in which they wish to buried in? And if they do, what are the reasons behind? Is it a tradition, and if it is, is it connected to specific locality, region; is it specific to urban or rural areas? Does it have a religious meaning and background? Does it in some way reflect on our relationship to body, presentation and control during the times when we don't have control?

"We commonly think of death as our final journey, a long sleep, and these metaphors are poignantly embodied in Margareta Kern's 'Clothes for Death'. In tattered suitcases or in a Camel cigarette holdall, these elderly women have packed their final outfits - a white nightgown, an embroidered bolero, a pillow, a pair of thick woollen socks. There is a moving contrast between their worn clothes and the newness of the unworn - clothes that someone else will dress them in.  
Following her 'Graduation Dresses,' which marked the transition from teenager to young woman, this series honours our final transition with a direct but respectful gaze. Although none of the subjects smile, their faces seem to tell how they will approach the unknown: with contentment, bitterness, dissatisfaction or uncertainty. In each, the ritual garments laid out at their sides suggest a consolation, a chance to preordain one aspect of the unknowable. The stark simplicity of their present surroundings is filled with their inevitable future. In some images, the half-shuttered windows, some netted, others bare, hint at the otherworldly just beyond the frame. Kern has brilliantly captured the alignment of the earthly and the transcendent with warm assurance and quiet resolution."
Cherry Smyth, critic for Art Review, Art Monthly

Photographs from Clothes for Death project will be exhibited in a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath, starting from 12th September '07 until 04 January 2008. The exhibition will open as part of the international conference 'The Social Contexts of Death, Dying and Disposal', when I will be presenting a paper charting a background to the project and sharing my fieldwork experience to date.

I embarked on two research journeys, funded by the Arts Council England R&D award. During the second journey I posted some of my project and travel writing on the a-n projects unlimited blog website, edited version of which was published in the July edition of a-n magazine.

"Ultimately, what I am seeking in the photograph taken of me (the 'intention' according to which way I look at it) is Death: Death is the eidos of that Photograph."
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, p 15.

The research for this project has been kindly funded by the Research and Development Grant from the Arts Council England.
For their support I would also like to thank Dr Renata Jambresic Kirin and the staff at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb; Ethnologist Zvonimir Toldi from Muzej Brodskog Posavlja in Slavonski Brod, Croatia; Dr Marija Lugarec from the Croatian Chamber of Economy; Professor Manda Svirac from the University of Philosophy, Ethnology Department, Zagreb; Dona Danon, Anthropologist, Zagreb; Andja Stanivukovic, Banja Luka ,Bosnia & Herzegovina; Otac Radivoje, Nevesinje, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Zeljka Micic, London, UK and Dr Alex Rotas , Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Cardiff, UK.
I am very grateful to all the women who took part in the project, without their willingness, openess and curiosity this project would not exist!