YoHa (Sleeping with the Dead)
Sleeping with the Dead, is an act of remembrance for those bodies reinterned 10 years ago from London's Bedlam Burial Ground to a site adjacent to Willow Cemetery, Canvey Island. The project will take place on the 28th and 29th June, during Estuary 2025 and you are all invited.
When £18.5 billion was invested in the Crossrail project to build Transport for London’s Elizabeth Line, part of the Bedlam burial ground was uncovered. This burial ground was in use from 1569 to 1738 and contained approximately 25,000 bodies during its 180 years of operation. The cemetery was the final resting place for a large proportion of Londoners at the time, including the poor, the rebellious, the diseased, dissenters, and the mentally ill.
In 2016, T Cribb & Sons, a funeral director, carefully disinterred the remains of around 3,000 people. These remains were thought to have little scientific value and were respectfully reburied in a mass grave adjacent to Willow Cemetery on Canvey Island in Essex. Meanwhile, the soil from the burial site in London was shipped to Wallasea Island, where it was used to help create a new RSPB nature reserve in the Essex Archipelago.
In recognition of the nameless and named historical figures such as the Levellers, John Lilburne, Robert Lockyer, and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, a local artist collective called YoHa is proposing a remembrance project during the Estuary Festival in June 2025. This project will include a series of workshops, talks, and sound installations, including listening to donated heartbeats and underground sounds from the original grave site.
YoHa worked closely with Yellow Door, a local community organisation, and students from the MA Digital Media, Goldsmiths, University of London to explore ways of recording heartbeats for this unique remembrance event. Firstly the students cooked a getting to know you feast for all. YoHa are also collaborating with local writers, sound artists, archaeologists, and T Cribb to offer a weekend of talks and workshops.
“Sleeping with the dead” is co-produced with Creative Estuary, with support from CastlePoint Council’s UKSPF fund, Arts Council England and is a commission of Estuary Festival.