Plucked From Earth To Bloom

Plucked From Earth to Bloom is a portrait of Mount Auburn that explores the Cemetery’s history and ecology through images of the physical landscape. The artwork is a large two-dimensional paper-weaving created from images sourced from Mount Auburn’s Historical Collections & Archives, satellite imagery, and photographs taken by the artist over the course of a year. The images were compiled and woven together to create an abstract map of the space that seeks to obscure and highlight various aspects of the Cemetery. 

The paper-weaving explores the ways in which time is compressed in the physical world, and highlights the way plants, materials, objects, human and nonhuman beings hold contexts that reveal deeper truths about the history of the Cemetery. 

The artwork will be displayed in the contemporary glass wing of Bigelow Chapel. There will be a Q&A with the artist and Public Events Producer, Julie-Anne Whitney, at 1:00pm. Light snacks and drinks will be provided. 

Registration is not required for this event. If you reserve a free ticket then that will help us gauge the interest in the event. 

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Markel Uriu is a 24-25 Artist in Residence at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She is an interdisciplinary artist based in Cambridge, MA earning her master’s in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2025). Her work explores impermanence, maintenance, and the unseen. Drawing from her Japanese and Irish-American heritage, she is particularly interested in liminal spaces, and explores these concepts through research, ephemeral botanical narratives, installations, and two-dimensional work. Her current work investigates the ways we view ourselves in relationship to other humans, species, and ecosystems and how it manifests in our landscapes. Markel is the recipient of various awards and residencies, including the Penny White Project Fund at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA, the 4Culture Amazon Artist in Residence, Seattle, WA and the 4Culture Artist Grant, Seattle, WA.