Madre Celestial

About

Shrines voice a deeply human need for beauty, symbols and ritual in the everyday.

Like the tributes left to the anonymous dead at Crossbones Graveyard, they are both communal and deeply personal creations, made by people’s own hands. They crop up spontaneously in places charged with meaning, manifesting unspoken feelings - of hope, fear, grief or gratitude.

Assembled from commonplace materials like paper chains, ribbons and plastic flowers, mundane items are deliberately arranged to connect to a mystical world. Shrines form a bridge between the realms of the living and the dead: becoming a place of remembrance and connection.

Built by many hands, street altars contain a spectrum of varying beliefs in a riot of colour and texture: vibrant expressions of pop creativity, spirituality and folk culture.

About Crossbones Graveyard:

A quiet garden with an extraordinary history. This post mediaeval burial ground is believed to be the last resting place of an estimated 15,000 people. Now a garden of remembrance, managed in partnership with Friends of Crossbones