What Is the Future of the Grave?
From the 19th-century movement to transform burial grounds into park-like spaces to the rise of cremation and green burial, the grave has radically changed over time. Now there are new opportunities to make cemeteries places where the dead are honored as part of a living community. Allison C. Meier has been leading cemetery tours in the New York City area since 2011, including to graves of Spiritualists and mediums such as Mollie Fancher and the Fox Sisters whose memorials have endured as places of pilgrimage. Her 2023 book Grave, published by Bloomsbury as part of the Object Lessons book series about the hidden lives of ordinary things, is based on her on-the-ground research on the American cemetery.
Bio
Allison C. Meier is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and researcher focused on visual culture, architecture, and overlooked history. Her book Grave was published this year by Bloomsbury as part of the Object Lessons book series. She’s also the author of the Great Trees of New York Map, Art Deco New York Map, and Concrete New York Map from Blue Crow Media. She is currently the editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine and has bylines in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, CityLab, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and other publications. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide.
Curated and Hosted by
Shannon Taggart is an artist and author exploring the intersection between Spiritualism, photography, and the representation of belief. Her work has been exhibited and featured internationally, including within the publications TIME, New York Times Magazine, Discover, and Newsweek. Taggart’s monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019), was named one of TIME’s ‘Best Photobooks of 2019.’ https://www.shannontaggart.com/
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Shannon Taggart’s Supernatural Mystery Symposium
Selections from the annual event on supernatural mystery and strange cultural history, curated by Shannon Taggart and hosted in Lily Dale, NY, USA—the town home to the world’s largest Spiritualist community.
What Is the Future of the Grave? by Allison Meier – 3 Mar
Dr. Raymond Buckland’s ‘Wide World of Spirit – Steven Intermill and Toni Rotonda – 24 Mar
Spiritual Spectacles: Mother’s Work and the Shaker Era of Manifestations – Maria Molteni – 11 Apr
Ted Serios: The Mind’s Eye, with Emily Hauver – 25 Apr
Séance: Spiritualism, Photography and the Search for Ectoplasm – Shannon Taggart – 2 May
Music from Elsewhere – Doug Skinner – 9 May
Publishing the Paranormal – Charles and Penelope Emmons – 16 May
Supernatural Mystery Symposium: Reclaiming Art – JF Martel – 23 May
The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle – Michael W Homer – 20 Jun