Photo Book Project
This was the final project for a photography class. I went to two different historic cemeteries, West Union Street Cemetery in Athens and Dovel Memorial Cemetery in Pickerington. Both have a lot of burials from the 18th and 19th centuries, some of the oldest graves in Ohio.
Older graves have a heavy emphasis on symbolism, and with time that language was lost. You can trace the origins of certain symbols back to biblical themes and see how people thought, the way their ideas filtered through to the art they made.
I did as much research as possible into the people behind the graves as possible. It was quite difficult, as Ohio did not require vital records to be saved during this time.
I feel it is not only an art project, but an important preservation of these graves. Over time, they will become rarer and rarer, and these will be all we have of them, the only existing record of some people.
Made for VICO 1421 at Ohio Univeristy
