Burial Grounds

Tracing Acts of Remembrance between Ground and Body

Edwin Pitja

BArch Hons 2021

Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Claudia Morgado
Unit Tutor: Ruby Mungoshi
Unit Assistant: Azraa Gabru

UNIT 13^︎︎︎
Second Nature | Shared Futures

Ground plays an important role on earth, it is the life-giver both below and above to plants, animals, and human beings. Humans have a special connection to the ground. According to Giambattista Vico, the word ‘human’ came from the Latin for soil, humus, and from the verb ‘to bury’ humando. Therefore, humans were creatures of the soil who bury their dead.

This work explores burial rituals between the Pedi burial traditions and Christian burial traditions to establish and understand the connections between ground, body, and memory. The work traces how memory is created and shared through rituals and how it connects back to the body and ground. With the body ceasing to exist, the life of those deceased lives on through people’s memories. Through documentational drawings and experimental drawings, the work helps us to understand our own indigenous relationships to the ground, body, and memory and formulates a hybrid between Pedi and Christian burial rituals. The hybridised space also looks at the impact Covid had on the performance of burial rituals which lead to homes transforming into sacred spaces.

Keywords:
Ground, Body, Remembrance, Trace

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