Multiples!!!

Second year starts off with a new brief about 'Multiples' which is also connected with the city of Edinburgh. I had heard about this story of a really popular magician who burned to death in Edinburgh in the early 1900s from a tv show but hadn’t really looked further into it so i decided to look the story up to see if i could get anything from it.

The Great Lafayette and Beauty

Sigmund Neurberger, known by stage name The Great Lafayette, was the highest paid performer of his time with waiting lists to see his performances years in advance. He died in a fire performing ‘The Lions Bride’ in Edinburgh’s Empire Theatre on May 9^th 1911 and was buried with his beloved dog Beauty, given to him by Harry Houdini in Piershill Cemetary. You can read more about Lafayettes life and death here.


As interesting as the story was my heart was set on the theme of 'multiple orgasm' looking at the way womens bodies are used as commodities in the cities, maybe looking at advertising, shop mannequins or sex work. Researching sex work i found out a lot about Edinburgh’s history of sex work from ScotPEP, from the Magdalene Asylum in which one of Burke and Hares victims had been incarcerated to current laws regarding saunas and the prostitution tolerance zones in Leith.

We’re heading off to Edinburgh soon but I have an idea in my hear of what I want to do so I’ll see what images I can get and where my ideas go then.