Urn Burial is a ritual I performed at Urn Field at the closing of the Folkestone Triennial, as a means of metaphorically burying Urn Field. The title is taken from the 1658 book by Thomas Browne (Hydriotaphia/Urne Buriall).

For the Urn Burial ritual I dyed cloths with foraged blackberries, some from the Urn Field site, and covered each sculpture in turn. As I did so, I recited a text addressing each sculpture by its name which corresponded to a plant I had aligned it. My text is in the gallery above. I made ceramic seed-inspired weights on ropes to anchor/attach the cloths to the sculptures. At Plantain I gave my audience each a plantain leaf I had pressed in clay and fired, as a votive/relic. At Blackberry I offered the audience blackberries, and at Blackthorn we drank sloe gin. At Elder we drank elderflower cordial and shared apple cakes I had made. I wanted to celebrate the ecology of the site, and as you can see in the film, the sculptures are being gently surrounded and consumed by plants.

With thanks to Oliver Parkin who made the film and Thea Eaton-Baudains who photographed Urn Burial.