SEMPER, JONTY - The 1 Minute Silence From The Funeral Of Diana, Princess of Wales

This is the first part of a 2-part project by British artist Jonty Semper. The 1 minute silence from the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales was recorded in Hyde Park by Jonty Semper on 6 September 1997 as the live BBC television broadcast of the ceremony was shown on a big screen in the park. All around the world people similarly observed the ritual unfold, a communal gathering unprecedented in contemporary times: levelling divisions,uniting through grief and contemplation, loaded with specific current social and political meanings. The single places the contemporary public silence observed during the mourning of Dianas death in context with the second part of the project, Kenotaphion, produced as a result of researching, locating and anthologising all the existing archive recordings of the two minute silences from the Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday ceremonies at the Cenotaph, Whitehall, London.