CHARLES SAATCHI//DEAD

In Saatchi's book, Dead, a Celebration of Mortality, he looks at a wide range of aspects to do with life and death, one thing he speaks about the necropolis railway. During the industrial revolution, life expectancy was low and mortality rates were high, however there was also a huge boom in population in the early 19th century. This lead to a crisis of not having enough room to bury the dead or even to keep the living alive. The solution to this was building a station as part of Waterloo station just to transport dead bodies to a cemetery out in surrey where there was enough room to bury them. I find the idea of this one final journey before being buried really interesting and the station looks really cool and creepy too.

Necropolis Cemetery Station

Another interesting part of the book is the one where, in the 70s, because public records were so poorly managed and officials were easily bribed, you could accidentally or purposefully be legally dead and not know about it. One young man went to a bank to get a loan but was refused because he was dead. People started to 'kill' their distant relatives so they could inherit any wealth they had. Being legally dead but still very much alive is a very intriguing state to be in. 

A comical image of a man reaching out of his own coffin, interesting and strong imagery.