New Philosopher – July 2019

NewPhilosopher

What’s on

What’s on

Death

is Elsewhere

The Met, New York, USA

Death Is Elsewhere is Icelandic artist

Ragnar Kjartansson’s most recent work

in a series of durational performance-

based works in which a single song is

performed without beginning or end,

in a nearly continuous loop. Filmed

around the time of the summer solstice

shortly after midnight in southern Ice-

land, Death Is Elsewhere features male

and female pairs of twins performing

the title song against a landscape of

sublime natural beauty, as they move

continuously across seven screens, en-

circling the viewer. Despite the idyllic

setting and dulcet song, the spectre of

death is omnipresent.

metmuseum.org/exhibitions/

listings/2019/ragnar-kjartansson-death-

is-elsewhere

Until

2 September,

2019

Body Worlds

London, UK

Dr Gunther von Hagens’s re-

nowned exhibition of real human

bodies has sparked curiosity and awe

around the world with over 48 mil-

lion visitors globally. It now has a

permanent museum at Piccadilly Cir-

cus in London. All anatomical speci-

mens in the exhibitionarerealandit

is the only exhibitionof realhuman

bodies with its ownestablished do-

nor programme. Currently,thereare

over 17,000 donors worldwidewh

Day of the
Dead parade
Throughout Mexico & Guatemala

The Day of the Dead, El Dia de
los Muertos, is a 4,000-year-old tra-
dition celebrated in Mexico on the
1st and 2nd of November each year.
Altars are built in homes with fruit,
food, flowers, and small articles that

All year

November 1 – 2,

annually

approved to donate their body for pub-

lic display and educational purposes.

bodyworlds.co.uk

used to belong to loved ones, in the

belief that they will visit from the after-

life. Sugar skulls are decorated and sold

in the markets – and traditional towns,

such as Aguascalientes, hold a desfile, or

Day of the Dead procession, attended

by over 75,000 people that incorpo-

rates music, dancing, allegoric cars, and

people dressed as ‘Catrinas’.

ich.unesco.org/en/RL/indigenous-

festivity-dedicated-to-the-dead-00054