The staff of Rosetta Requiem are in the midst of a cultural revolution. Not only are they in the vanguard of working with people suffering a life-threatening illness, but they are also carving out time and space for these individuals to attend to their lives and to their deaths. This is an extraordinary undertaking and a unique approach to the question of: What matters most now, if this is the end? Rosetta Requiem brings art and the individual together to grapple with this question.
Death and suffering are not sexy. Nor are they marketable. Over the last century people living in the developed world have become pathologically afraid of death. We live in a culture that has replaced spirituality with science and rabid materialism. Death is not a suitable subject for discussion. Beauty, youth, sex, fashion, money, objects and the promises of botox, all are. So how do we make space to ponder the mysterious event of death? Most of us prefer to put off these uncomfortable thoughts until death has arrived on our doorstep. At that point there is often a profound sense of ill-preparedness and quite often, no escape.
“Our ideas of death and dying are rooted in sadness and melancholy. We wanted to make this Requiem one that celebrates the hope, laughter and love of life experienced by the people we meet in the hospices. The initiative seeks to contribute to the quality of life at the end of life. To assist people to tell the stories that matter to them.” These are the words of Rosetta Requiem’s founder and Artistic Director, Lucinda Jarrett. The organization began life as an artist-run initiative in 1997. Today the programme is run in 15 hospices and gives hospice users the opportunity to commemorate and celebrate their lives, with the help of world-class film makers, composers and musicians.
The project is inspired by the traditional requiem form which was a choral music exploration of suffering, death, grief and acceptance. Jarrett explains that Rosetta Requiem makes it possible for the collaborators to “continue in this tradition by bringing their own interpretations to the requiem.”
Most recently Rosetta Requiem has involved artists such as Billy Bragg, Michael Nyman and Emily Young. These artists give their time to facilitate individuals seeking to create a work of art. Their art is often a gift for loved ones which takes the form of an artistic memento; a work to be shared with the audience of their choice. The project is centred on the notion that all human beings are artists and that there are some things that make us all the same.
The project involves the individual’s discovery of their artistic voice, which is then supported by the practised artist. Lucinda Jarrett says that the process “enables people to use artistic expression to share their hopes and fears at a time when words are simply not enough.”
The artists themselves are often drawn to return to the project because of the integrity, passion and courage of the individual participants. Their witnessing of life, so close to death, is a humbling experience.
Billy Bragg says: “Working with hospices to make songs for the Rosetta Requiem has been inspirational for me. I’ve been constantly surprised to find how open people are to expressing themselves once they have been given a way in. The women brought the words and I have simply helped channel them into songs and music to make a way through serious illness and emotional turmoil. “
Maxine Edgington worked with Bragg on writing a song as a gift for her fifteen year old daughter Jessica. Maxine is the third generation of women in her family to suffer from breast cancer. Her first treatment in 2000 included a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and eventual remission.
Five years later Maxine is once again battling for her life. This time she’s only given six months to live and all she can think of is how Jessica will remember her. With passion and wry humour Maxine tells of her wrestle with God. How she doesn’t want to leave her daughter, how she’s not ready to die. She is clever, articulate and determined about why she should be spared. In the end Maxine gives in; which is very different from giving up. She “gives over” her daughter and her life, she comes to a realisation: “ I don’t know what else to do except to trust that the right thing will happen.” It does. A year later Maxine is still alive and in fact she’s well. In remission to be precise. Her daughter is a year older and she is co-writer with Billy Bragg of a hit song called We Laughed. Maxine is full of good humour and humility; ” In creativity there are no rules. It allowed me to write things about myself without any restrictions. Creativity gave me a freedom… that I had never been able to achieve.” Maxine’s song with Billy Bragg is featured on the Rosetta Requiem website.
Claire Harcup the Commissioning Executive of Culture Online, which funded Rosetta Requiem responds; “ People’s response to hearing Maxine and Billy talk has been extraordinary. Many have contacted us about how Maxine’s story has affected them… How We Laughed has made individuals reconsider the way in which they approach their lives and their relationship with others.”
Three films are also available for viewing: Blind Spot, Hunaston Beach and Imitation of Life. These short works are finely wrought, quirkily detailed and moving personal testaments. A specific element of each person’s response to their illness is captured and shared. At times the films are hard to watch. As an observer you are made painfully aware of each person’s struggle; and yet at other moments the wonderfully wicked humour is a homage to human courage. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and writer says; “Art, storytelling, and above all, music have a unique and powerful ability to bring meaning and coherence to human experience, even when it is threatened by severe illness. Rosetta Life …provides a remarkable opportunity for creative self-expression and, in the deepest sense, access to the health within.”
Rosetta Requiem’s projects are available for viewing on their website. This site opens windows onto the collaborations with web logs, video diaries, audio files. interactive ‘making of” sequences and the work itself. And each hospice has its own media centre where the art work can be made and loaded onto the site.
Claire Harcup : “Culture Online is part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We were set up in 2002 to commission projects that inspire people to learn and participate in new ways. Through editorial leadership and a creative use of technology, Culture Online aims to enable learning and participation where it’s previously been difficult to do so.” In the case of Rosetta Requiem “It’s about sharing stories, emotions and artistic expression at a time of heightened emotional awareness.”
How differently would we live our lives if we were able to think and speak of death openly?
Imagine a culture where people have the time, support and capacity to face death; prepare for it and make artistic gestures of farewell to their loved ones.
Imagine a culture that does not sweep death under the carpet and includes the process of dying in its celebrations.
Claire Harcup points out that : “We Laughed – has contributed to the debate about how we as a nation respond to death and dying. I have been struck by the number of people who have said how much We Laughed has helped them talk about issues they and their families face now or have faced in the past. The project has opened up a topic that is seldom discussed.”
By honouring the passage from life into death a project like Rosetta Requiem is already subtly shifting the attitudes and perceptions that our culture holds about death.
