I have just returned from Europe where I had been studying Victorian mourning customs for the project MEMORIUM#2. This celebration of death could seem theatrical and macabre today but these customs were done to ease the intensity of the pain and were shared by all the community. This shows a drastic contrast with post modern individualist and materialist society in which death has disappeared from social spheres to move into the medical one.

The picture above is a post mortem photograph of a dead child. Photographing the recently deceased was seen as a way to remember the departed. In this photograph, the family probably tries to enhance the effect of life by propping the subject's eyes open. The picture below shows a woman wearing what seems to be typical mourning jewellery, a brooch in the shape of a hand holding yew and roses (1884, Studio N. Paul Versailles).

These two photographs were purchased in Puces de Saint Ouen (Paris). http://www.doitinparis.com/weekend-getaway/discovery-flea-market-saint-ouen-8651