While 'time' in itself is a rather abstract phenomenon, we constantly sense time through our material environment. Changes in the body, the accumulation of photos in the family album, the observation of decayed buildings and materials, handling personal objects that make deceased friends and family present; in different ways such concrete sensate engagements give access to time.
DMT explores how humans, in different historical periods and different geographical settings, relate to time and death through such concrete, material practices. This brings together a number of diverse cases ranging from Danish Middle Neolithic burials and mummification in ancient Egypt over reincarnation in Siberia and gradual death in Papua New Guinea to the ongoing movement of deceased relatives in Uganda and the use of commemorative websites in Denmark.
All these diverse case studies are brought togwether in a number of design experiments, which will eventually materialise in an exhibition at Museum of Cultural History (KHM) in 2015.
DMT runs from august 2011 to September 2015. Apart from traditiojnal archaeological and anthropological research the project will organise a number of workshops and design experiments, where researchers, artists and museum professionals will geto together to explore some of the central questions raised in research through object installations.