Fraternity

With the Alfred Denny Museum, University of Sheffield

Thanks go to Dr. Emma Hughes for facilitating this work

Made with Arts Council England funding as part of More Than Human

Fraternity is a response to the seven individuals within the Alfred Denny Museum, a University of Sheffield museum of zoological specimens.

As a teaching museum these individuals allow for students to learn comparative anatomy between human and animal skeletal structures, and as such the work cannot interfere with this study.

The work consists of a decorative chest piece on archival linen using jet and alabaster beads – the jet chosen for its association with mourning jewellery, and the alabaster for its use in funerary monuments. The piece represents the seven individuals (a full adult skeleton, a disarticulated infant skeleton, an adult hand, an adult foot, two adult skulls and one infant skull) with an alabaster ‘monument’ to each and is designed to adorn the adult skeleton and venerate the group as a whole.

A book with full details of the group is currently in production – the first draft is available online