Calvariae disjecta: the many hauntings of Burton Agnes Hall

One of the most ubiquitous English ghost stories, ‘The Screaming Skull of Burton Agnes Hall’, has been spread and adapted over many years, but it nonetheless persists. Drawing from his own library plus decades of research, artist and academic Robert Williams re-presents references to the story from more than 100 popular sources that extend across more than 150 years. The project, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Hilmar Schäfer, echoes the transmission of the story itself as an extended quotation, in oral traditions and through downright plagiarism. The many lives of this story mapped out by this collection tell us as much about cultural and historical representations as they do a lurid tale of murder, grave-opening and screaming skulls. Contributors to the project include artist and designer James Brook, artist and writer Dr. Kate Briggs (American University in Paris/Piet Swart Institute, Rotterdam) and cultural sociologist Dr. Hilmar Schäfer (Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany).