Sweet dreams: Biographical blanks and the commemoration of children

Abstract

In recent years, the commemoration of children and infants has assumed increasingly expressive and conspicuous forms at Danish cemeteries, setting their grave plots apart from the predominant design idiom, otherwise characterised by coherence and modesty, in the form of short biographies of the deceased or by presencing her or his personality. The question, then, is how we are to understand this boisterous mode of commemoration, when the deceased was stillborn or only lived for a few years? Exploring this paradox subsequently leads to the scrutiny of recent developments in public memorial culture as it unfolds on the internet. The article thus examines the intersections of memory and emotion, and it specifically explores the narrative forms for children in commemorative practice.

Death ends a lifenota relationship: timework and ritualizations at Mindet.dk

“…142f. ), and the same may be found in mourning practices found at children's graves Flohr Sørensen, 2011).…”

Archaeologists on contemporary death

“…Crucially, some studies have recently begun to explore contemporary death as a subject of investigation in its own right (e.g. Sørensen, 2010Sørensen, , 2011.…”

‘Childness’: An Alternative Approach to the Archaeology of Childhood through Cemetery Studies

“…For example, Sørenson's (2010, 2011) work on late twentieth-and early twenty-first-century Danish children's commemoration noted a move from traditionally minimalist and austere expression to a more elaborate and interactive commemorative space, including the provision of artifacts, such as toys and flowers, with which the visitor can interact as a form of extended engagement with the In addition, previous work has suggested that the cemetery landscape deliberately speaks to both the past and the future through the medium of the present in different ways. For example, Sørenson (2010Sørenson ( , 2011 work on late twentieth-and early twenty-first-century Danish children's commemoration noted a move from traditionally minimalist and austere expression to a more elaborate and interactive commemorative space, including the provision of artifacts, such as toys and flowers, with which the visitor can interact as a form of extended engagement with the deceased. He interprets this as a reflection of both the representation of memory and the 'presencing' of the emotional trauma resulting from a child's death.…”