Embodied Engagement - Memento Mori

A workshop session as part of Drift London 2023 ‘Other Ways of Knowing’ with Unidentified Facility.

Through creatively exploring the ‘world of ideas’, this session acts as a model to demonstrate potential for a new design ontology that explores experiences/ mindsets outside of conventional (normal) design practices.

Extract from the session….

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For this next 5minutes I have an activity planned for you all…. It’s going to be an introduction that hopefully you can take away and try at other burial sites… (If it hadn’t been for the rain we would have been standing in a graveyard at this point on the drift) 

So, I would like you all to take a pack. This is a mechanism for embodied engagement with the past and mortality. Inspired by burial experiences. 

In Korea you can be prescribed a burial ceremony.. they call it ‘dying for a better life’ where you have a photoshoot to create your funeral photo and attend a ceremony where you say goodbye to loved ones and lay in a box for 15mins contemplating death.

Liu Taijie in China founded the ‘grave classroom’ where participants suffering from mental health issues can dig their own grave and lie in it as a mechanism to appreciate life.

Professor Howard Williams at Chester University identifies sarcophagi and funeral spaces as key opportunities to engage society with the past and mortality.

In Todmorden we have a death cafe where people meet once a month to talk about death.. to help those grieving but also ask larger questions that seek perspectives and purpose.

The illustration on the pack is a tracing from an engraving on a relatives tomb stone in Italy.. Mariano Cocchiarella who died in 1909. The M M stands for Memento Mori - which is Latin for ‘remember you must die’.

So,
The pack contains an emergency blanket which you can lay on the ground and wrap around you to keep you warm and dry.
When I blow this Aztec death whistle to summon the spirits I would like you to choose a grave and lay on it contemplating life and death.
I will wake you all (and chase away any unwanted spirits) by ringing this bell to finish.

So here are your packs…

Please use the moment to question your beliefs and values… what does this activity tell you about yourself…?