Rendering: the museum building set into the landscape of Bonaventure Cemetery

Museum exhibit · THED 735 · Prof. Theresa Shook

Living in Death

Stories, symbols and souls of Bonaventure

A museum experience honoring Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, where the dead tell stories and every pathway reveals another piece of Savannah’s shadowy tradition.

Course
THED 735 · Prof. Theresa Shook
Project
Museum exhibit, a team of four
Site
Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia
My part
Museum story and floor plans with the team; the Famous People gallery

Overview

A Southern Gothic museum

In the heart of Bonaventure Cemetery, something special awaits. This immersive museum explores the history and cultural legacy of one of the world’s most famous cemeteries, inviting guests into an ethereal Southern Gothic landscape where the dead tell stories.

Guests encounter the cemetery’s past and present residents, and discover how art, grief, folklore and history turned Bonaventure into a cultural icon. Each of the four designers built one zone along that walk.

4
designers, one zone each
4
exhibit zones along one walk
4
famous residents in my gallery
Theatre Festival
lighting states, day and night

Story & plans

From bubble plan to floor plan

We wrote the museum story together and turned it into a building: a bubble plan first, to decide how the zones connect and in what order guests meet them, then a finalized plan that fixes each room, its entrance and its exit.

Bubble plan.
Bubble plan.
Finalized plan.
Finalized plan.

Team work · History & founders · The entrance · Kristoffer Zachrisson

Through the mausoleum doors

Guests enter a calm, peaceful lobby where a guide introduces the journey ahead. As the story unfolds, the doors of a mausoleum slowly open through drifting smoke, marking the beginning of the experience.

Inside is a compact chamber where statues and scenery slowly come to life. Through movement, light and storytelling, the figures share their histories, revealing the story of Bonaventure and what they did on that land.

The lobby: the mausoleum doors open through smoke.
The lobby: the mausoleum doors open through smoke.
The founders’ chamber, where statues tell their stories.
The founders’ chamber, where statues tell their stories.
Mausoleum door study.
Mausoleum door study.

Team work · Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil · Emily McConnell

A garden behind the gate

Entering the exhibit space, guests face a stone structure with stairs up to a courtyard patio overlooking the museum. A peculiar garden gate tucked into the ground-floor wall leads into a flowering sanctuary honoring Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and its rich connection to Bonaventure.

The garden sanctuary.
The garden sanctuary.
Outside
Courtyard patio, an ADA elevator mausoleum, the garden-gate entrance and the exit.
Inside
A faux live oak, the Bird Girl exhibit, a John Berendt quote, a timeline of the Bonaventure and Midnight connection, rare book editions and an original Jack Leigh Midnight photograph.
Valerie Boles
A dedicated exhibit for the artist, framed by groundcover and foliage.
Exterior: the stone structure and courtyard patio.
Exterior: the stone structure and courtyard patio.
Front.
Front.
Side.
Side.
Plan.
Plan.
Plan, interior.
Plan, interior.
Interior, axonometric.
Interior, axonometric.
Interior, right wall.
Interior, right wall.
Interior, left wall.
Interior, left wall.
The Valerie Boles exhibit.
The Valerie Boles exhibit.

Team work · The Living Graveyard · Lizzie Adams

Deciphering grave language

Visitors come across a model graveyard with simple headstones and hanging moss, alongside traditional museum display boards and artifact cases. The graves are the base for projections: guests press buttons labeled with words like “religion”, “peace”, “parenthood” and “tragedy”, and the matching grave symbol animates across the scene before settling on a headstone.

Headstones become the projection surface.
Headstones become the projection surface.
Set
Faux graveyard, statue, faux foliage with bushes, small trees and Spanish moss.
Museum
Two artifact display cases and a wall display of history and information.
Interaction
A button and projection activation console.
Size
About National Theatre LiveNational Theatre Live′ 4″ × National Theatre Live3′ 5″.
Artifact cases and the activation console.
Artifact cases and the activation console.
A visitor at the display.
A visitor at the display.

你的记忆会在这棵树里继续活下去。

“Write down a memory for someone who has passed away. Your memory will live on within the tree.”

Tree of Memory · Famous People gallery

My part · Iris (Jingwen) Li

Famous People: Forget-Me-Not

Everything above is the museum we built as a team. From here on is my own zone: a gallery that tells the stories of four remarkable people buried at Bonaventure. Each represents a different side of Savannah, music, poetry, heritage and emotion, and through their lives guests are invited to think about death, memory and the bond between people and the city they loved.

Key visual

One walk under the trees

The gallery is a single path under the trees, in four steps: an entrance, a tree to leave a memory in, a wall of four lives, and a swing at the end.

Overview model of the Famous People gallery.
Overview model of the Famous People gallery.

Role

What I designed

i

Story & plans, with the team

Shaping the museum as one walk.

  • Wrote the overall museum story together with the team
  • Worked on the bubble plan and the finalized floor plan
  • Placed the Famous People gallery in the sequence of zones
ii

The Famous People gallery

Four lives, told as a walk rather than a wall of text.

  • Chose four residents who each stand for one side of Savannah
  • Broke the gallery into four steps, from entrance to swing
  • Built the 3D models and the day and night renderings
iii

Participation & atmosphere

Letting guests leave something behind.

  • Designed the Tree of Memory, where guests write a message for someone they lost
  • Designed the swing that starts the music and turns day into night
  • Drew every step in two lighting states

Inquiry

Questions the gallery had to answer

Digital TheatreNational Theatre Live

Story

Four lives, one room

How do you tell four very different lives without turning the room into a wall of plaques?

Each person stands for one part of Savannah’s identity: literature, music, heritage and collective memory. On the Wall of Memories each one gets an arch of their own, with a portrait, their dates and a small shelf of objects, so guests read a life through things rather than paragraphs.

Digital TheatreTheatre Festival

Participation

From reading to remembering

A cemetery museum is easy to look at and hard to feel. How does a guest take part?

Before guests meet the famous, they remember someone of their own. At the Tree of Memory they write a memory or message for someone who has passed away and leave it on the tree, where it lives on with the others. The gallery becomes about memory in general, not only about celebrity.

Digital Theatre3

Atmosphere

Why day and night?

Bonaventure is a peaceful garden by day and a place of legend after dark. Which one should the gallery show?

Both. Every step is designed in two lighting states: warm, dappled sunlight through the trees by day, and deep blue with candles and fireflies at night. The same space carries two moods, so a return visit can feel like a different place.

Digital Theatre4

Ending

Ending on a swing

How does the gallery end, after four lives and one of the guest’s own?

With a swing. Sitting on it starts an interactive music experience, and as it moves back and forth the lighting slowly shifts between day and night. It is a quiet, physical ending about time passing, and a moment to rest before leaving.

Entrance

Step Digital TheatreNational Theatre Live

Enter the gallery

Guests enter the Famous People area and read the introduction to the space: who is buried here, and why their stories still matter to the city.

Day
Day
Night
Night
Model study
Model study

Tree of Memory

Step Digital TheatreTheatre Festival

Leave a memory

Write down a memory or message for someone who has passed away. Your memory will live on within the tree.

Day
Day
Night
Night
Model study
Model study
Model study
Model study

Wall of Memories

Step Digital Theatre3

Meet four lives

Learn about the four famous figures buried here, each representing a different part of Savannah’s cultural identity.

Day
Day
Night
Night

The wall is titled “Forget-Me-Not: Memories of Savannah”.

Johnny Mercer · National Theatre Live9Digital Theatre9–National Theatre Live976
Music. The Savannah-born songwriter.
Conrad Aiken · National Theatre Live889–National Theatre Live973
Literature. The poet who came home to Savannah.
Mary Telfair · National Theatre Live79National Theatre Live–National Theatre Live875
Heritage. Her legacy lives on in the city’s museums.
Little Gracie Watson · National Theatre Live883–National Theatre Live889
Collective memory. Her statue is one of the most visited graves in Bonaventure.
Model study
Model study

The Swings

Step Digital Theatre4

Swing between day and night

Sit on the swing to start an interactive music experience. As the swing moves back and forth, the lighting gradually shifts between day and night.

Day
Day
Night
Night
Model study
Model study

Credits

Team
Lizzie Adams, Jingwen Li, Emily McConnell, Kristoffer Zachrisson
Jingwen Li
Museum story and plans with the team; the Famous People gallery
Kristoffer Zachrisson
History & founders, the entrance
Emily McConnell
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Lizzie Adams
The Living Graveyard
Course
THED 735 · Prof. Theresa Shook