Originally Abney Park was a historic parkland in the Borough of Hackney created in the early C18th over 31 acres, now part of inner London. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery (the first in Europe to have no dividing lines between burial plots for people of different faiths), a semi-public park with arboretum and educational institute. 

 

The broadcast is live from just one of the many common graves at Abney Park Cemetery. To date at least 175 common grave sites have been discovered by ‘Abney Unearthed’. A volunteer run project remapping the cemetery funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund to add missing information to the burial records and research the life-stories of some of the almost 200,000 people interred here. They are still in the process of determining the overall number of common graves on the site. 

 

The Reveil Stream combines noises from below and above ground, via contact mics and a geophone, as the urban dawn chorus self-mixes with early morning transport systems and underground sounds. These subterranean stirrings might include the clicks of root-munching larvae, rustling worms as they crawl through tunnels, plant roots taking up water & moving past soil and beetles communicating with each other. The sources of these micro sounds are difficult to identify to the untrained ear and often remain rather enigmatic.

 

The stream sequel to Michelle’s stream from last year from Eden Valley Natural Woodland Burial site. It relates to Michelle’s larger project titled Ecstatic ROT exploring our relationships with transience, decomposition and re-composition as more-than-human activity. The project is funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund supporting Arts Council England.

 

Abney Unearthed: https://abneypark.org/abney-unearthed

Michelle’s work: https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/c3riimpact/tag/michelle-atherton/