Death Cafe Work Ideas

I have been very stuck as to what to make for the Lost for Words Exhibition....I knew I wanted to put in the Dust form a Doctor's Waiting Room, but I have been really at a loss about how it might be displayed. Imagining such a little pile of dust in that vast white space has had me really anxious. It was suggested I present it a museum, or cabinet of curiosities style, but trying to find a suitable piece of furniture (that is affordable) has proved impossible. I considered trying to make my own stand but, without the workshop and with very little time because of all the other work I have to do, this is not really a viable option.

I was finding it so tricky that I thought I needed to take a step back and re-assess what the piece was originally about. i find it easier to physically write down my thoughts, instead of list them on here...

I have decided to go with the last idea, putting very small amounts of the dust onto microscopic slides, as if they going to be examined under a microscope, and laying them out in neat rows. I have an image in my mind of them being displayed like a minimalist artwork, and in similar but not identical multiples, which I am always drawn to in artworks, I also intend to photograph the dust,or the slides of the dust and make them into postcards, which people can take away.

I have written the following for my artist statement:

Dust, the debris of time, is the material remains of the people who have existed and the actions that have transpired in a space over weeks, months and years: a catalogue. Dust is both life and death, at once telling of the body’s growth and of its decay. Skin cells shed and fall like grains of sand in an hourglass.

'Dust From A Doctor's Waiting Room' dissects this most degenerate of materials, both in a physical examination and in an invitation to reconsider its significance. Taken from Falmouth's Westover Surgery, the dust is specific to the residents of the town. Local visitors to the exhibition may well be looking at fragments of themselves in the work. 

Jess invites visitors to take postcards of the dust, so that it will be dispersed back into the local area and beyond.