I was going to enter the Cheltenham Awards this year anyway so having it as a uni brief is great as I'll have more time to work on it. The theme this year is "Tree Time Tales" and basically the idea that tree time is longer than human time...a bit confusing as apparently it doesn't have to have anything to do with trees at all but to show a narrative of an old story that can still be applied to today's society.
I had a few ideas to begin with about including trees anyway, but I started doing some reading online about old folklore, fairytales and their origins - which are actually pretty gruesome! I also looked into greek mythology, but wasn't until talking with friends that I learnt about the character of Charon. Basically the story goes that when someone dies, greeks would bury them with a coin placed in or on their mouths so that when they went to the underworld, they could pay Charon the ferryman to take their souls across the river Styx. Those who could not pay or were left unburied are said to be forced to walk the bank of the Styx for a hundred years. I think some Romans did this sort of thing as well, and I learnt from a friend who's from Hong Kong that the Chinese do it too.
I'm not telling you my contemporary twist yet! You'll have to wait and see!
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