Help reclaim the cemetery at Woodlands

My name is Michael de Courcy and I am a West Coast artist who has spent a decades-long career creating artworks that are about and have particular meaning for the communities where I have lived.

I am raising funds to rebuild an independently produced website that, since 2009, had served as a unique and valued resource for the families of loved ones buried in the cemetery at Woodlands, in the city of New Westminster, British Columbia. This website was one part of my public art and social justice project titled “DEAD AND BURIED, What became of the cemetery at Woodlands?” It was my intention to illuminate the lives of people who lived in our community, who were marginalized in life, and then marginalized again in death.

From the 1920s until 1958, the remains of 3,065 people were buried in marked graves on the site of the Woodlands school (1950 - 1996) which was previously the provincial asylum (1878 - 1950). In 1978 the provincial government had the headstones of those people removed in an attempt to make the grounds inoffensive to residents of a nearby hospital. Instead, in the view of many activists and families over the following years, a former age's disregard for a troubling history effectively created a mass grave.

The “DEAD AND BURIED” website presented a virtual recreation of the Woodlands cemetery by using Google Maps, with a satellite view and a corresponding overlay of each and every cemetery plot. It was possible to view the names of every person buried there and to click on the marker for an individual to see additional information about them. The site offered freely accessible GPS coordinates that allowed anyone to visit the physical cemetery and locate a specific grave within a few feet. The website also enabled a dialogue between hundreds of people who posted their stories, questions, and genealogical information. The entire process of finding a loved one’s burial site could be initiated by simply entering a name into a Google search.

Now 13 years later, with time and changes made by Google Maps, the technology that was used to create this website has ceased to function, leaving the links to the deceased broken. In losing the map capability, the invaluable research and remapping that created the GPS coordinates for the site are now rendered less useful. The funds I am asking for are necessary to hire a professional web designer to rebuild this complex, interactive website with a platform that will continue to perform well into the future. No other resource exists which serves as both an important community tool, and a historical document.

See Artwork: Cemetery To Mass Grave and The Cemetery



The Georgia Straight

Robin Laurence - Thursday, March 19, 2009

"Michael de Courcy's Dead and Buried is a sombre conceptual project by a dedicated artist and community activist. ... Dead and Buried represents a powerful effort of research and remapping."