Procession took place on Sunday 18 September,
with a mythical marching band, dancers and heavy horses. Watch a video of the procession.
Laid to Rest has transformed dust collected from houses,
businesses and institutions into a time capsule of 500
commemorative bricks. The bricks were put on display
as part of our 'Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life'
exhibition. Each brick contains the specific dust of its
contributor and is imprinted with information cataloguing its
origins. The stack of bricks grew over the course of the
exhibition. The project ended with all the bricks being
processed through the streets of London and buried in a hole.
Laid to Rest was inspired by the commercialisation of waste in
Victorian London, from the dust heap of Gray's Inn Road to the
engineering achievements of Joseph Bazalgette's sewage system. The
dust heap was a monument to the invisible and provided a major
source of income. One of the industries to be born out of the heap
was London brick-making: ash, cinders and rubbish from the heap
were mixed with the mud of nearby fields to produce the humble
Laid to Rest is a project by Serena Korda, commissioned by the
Wellcome Trust in association with UP Projects. Laid to Rest is
part of the Wellcome Trust's Dirt Season.