As the brochure for ``Dwelling" puts it, Forest Hills is ``the ultimate domestic space: a home for eternity." Artists submitted pieces responding to this theme; 15 projects were tapped. The airy and ethereal art makes a breathtaking counterpoint to the bulk and opacity of the cemetery's monuments. It's a stirring exhibit that almost inadvertently examines how ideas about death have changed in 150 years.
``Knock on Wood" by Andrea Thompson recalls the hair-raising scene in ``A Christmas Carol" in which Jacob Marley's ghost materializes as a doorknocker. Thompson mounted antique doorknockers on several cedar posts. Situated near the cemetery's entrance, Thompson's posts represent the threshold to the spirit world inhabited by the residents of Forest Hills. The act of knocking is poignant; nobody will ever answer. That lack of response evokes the ache of absence after a death and reminds us of our own solitude.
The Victorians made the cemetery a place where the bereaved could visit the departed, as represented by a tombstone. But if this show is any indication, artists today don't find granite or marble adequate as a stand-in for a lost loved one. They are more focused on expressing the experience of loss. And they turn the burying ground into a site of self-reflection.
Nothing does that better -- both literally and figuratively -- than ``The Mirroring Stone" by Adam Frelin , a gravestone crafted from polished stainless steel. Walking past, the reflection of grass and other monuments reads like a dizzying warp in your vision. Stop and focus, and you'll discover your own reflection, a chilling reminder that in the end, all that will be left of you is a marker on your grave.
