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Š Copy Right 2016 by Panisa Khunprasert All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in the retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from the author. For inquiries, contact pkhunprasert@sva.edu School of VIsual Arts MFA Products of Design 136 W21st Street New York, NY 10011-3213 productsofdesign.sva.edu
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Panisa Khunprasert Design&Author Allan Chochinov Chair, MFA Products of Design Thesis Advisor Abby Covert Thsis Advidoe Judy Arndt Editor
Content
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Introduction
Goal and Objectives
Research Methodology
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14 Primary research
14 Subject Matter 17 Experts 26 Organizations
30 Field Research 30 LiveOn NYC Luncheon 32 GoodGrief
34 Second Research
Literature Review
44 Explorations 44 Transitional Moments 48 Altar 52 Public Grieving
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Audience and Market
Lenses
Moving Forward
57 Innovation Adoption Curve
62 Speculative Design Objects
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58 Personas and Scenarios
66 Seeing The World Through Pastel Lenses 68 Medical Devices 70 Organ Donor’s Stationary Set 74 Fictional Newspaper 78 Co-creative workshop: Virtual/Actual Memorialization
82 Service Blueprints & App 84 Preset 92 Bloodline
102 Business Model 114 Products 114 Mauve 120 Shrine
134 Experience Design
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Introduction How this thesis came to be I have encountered three losses in my life. The very first funeral we had was my grandfather’s. We knew that day was coming because my grandfather had been struggling with Parkinson’s disease for decades. At that time I was only seven years old and I remember that the seven-day-service was very joyful. Our large family came together, the little girls were dressed in the same custom-made black dresses, and there was more laughter than tears. The second loss I experienced was a completely different story. I was thirteen years old and our family, my parents, my twin sister, and my younger brother, were driving to the south of Thailand to celebrate Thai New Year. Due to the heavy rain, the road was wet and the car slid and crashed. The accident took away my sister’s and brother’s lives, leaving me the single child to my parents. According to Thai statistics, thousands of traffic accidents and deaths occur during that time of year, but we never thought that it could happen to our family. I was hospitalized for a year and our family has never been the same again. The third loss was somehow similar to the first, except that I was older and witnessed the whole decaying process. My nanny (my second mother) who had raised me and my siblings since we were five, had been struggling with breast cancer for more than a decade. At one point, she had her breasts removed and came back to take care of me and our household. But the cancer went to her intestine and she determined that she didn’t want to fight and wanted to rest in peace. She passed away five years ago. Although I experienced many types of loss, I was never good at dealing with the situation. Initially, I have always said that the cultural context in Thailand does not allow us to speak openly about death. After discussions with experts, I realized that through the eyes of the western world, Eastern cultures are known for their rich rituals that celebrate death and afterlife. I took a step back and questioned myself if it really is our custom, or if it is just my parents who created this custom of ‘not talking’ about death. I remember my
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grandfather making jokes about his own death and funeral. My mom made this terrified face; she was very offended by these jokes. Generally, she does not like to talk about death. Growing up in an environment where wearing all black on a daily basis is unacceptable, I had always overlooked the fact that I was actually living in a culture that celebrated death. My parents are late boomer generation who were educated in the United States and could care less about rituals and ceremonies. We never had conversations about death when my grandfather died eighteen years ago, and they certainly never talked about it when they suddenly lost their own children.  They never thought that they would have to deal with death or loss that soon, so they were unprepared and became very fragile when the subject came up. Vulnerability was never among us and we became quite rational and insensitive in general. I doubt if we were the stereotypical Thai style family who incorporates Buddhist rituals in their everyday lives. We dealt with the loss differently. We are living in the custom of not talking about death.š Death or dying is not an acceptable conversation in modern society. The reason is that death is a failure to many industries in this material world. Death is a failure in medical fields. Death is a failure in automobile safety design. Death costs economical loss, as well as grief. In grieving, we are expected to get to the closure state as soon as possible to come back to our normal stage of mind and back to work. Grieving is viewed as weakness and a things you have to deal with internally among yourself or privately with a psychiatrist. We also don’t know how to react toward grievers. We thought that by not talking about it we will get over it faster. The truth is there is no such thing as closure and we have to be ready to accept the fact that grief comes and goes, and comes back again. We as a society have to learn how to live with death and grief because death is a nature of life and grief is a price we pay for love.
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Goal and Objectives Recognizing the problem Although I experienced many types of loss, I was never good at I went back to the reading I did in the summer, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, to reconfirm the information about death in Eastern cultures. Even though Tibetan and Thai Buddhism adopt similar concepts of impermanence and reincarnation, there are many differences in their practices. In Tibet, rituals and ceremonies that honor the dead (the actual corpse) are very prescriptive and there are many beliefs about the different stages of dying. In Thailand, rituals are less structured and focus more on the deceased’s family, and the corpse is almost unnecessary at funerals because we detach ourselves from physicality. The chanting at the funeral rather than being a tribute to the dead, teaches the living to continue their lives with consciousness and with the notion of uncertainty in the world. Both Tibetan and Thai Buddhism are also very similar in the way that the ritual is really a celebration for the end of life. From my experience, a funeral is not just the obligation of the immediate family members, but it is an event that friends, family, and often the deceased’s workplace collectively help organize. The funeral takes place at the temple for three to seven days and each day a different group of friends and family host the ceremony. Being a host means financially supporting the funeral and voluntarily facilitating the guests; it is a way of honoring both the deceased and the hosts themselves. At the funeral, there are tears but there is also laughter. There is always a lot of great food and socializing, and sometimes there is music and live performances. There is a broad sense of community. These are the people you know will be there for you when you need support afterward. Eastern funeral cultures may sound very effortless, idealistic, and effective in helping you accept loss. My family and I we went through all that; it did not work. One of the things I learned from my interviews with experts is that a lot of people in modern society do not believe in any religion, so they default to funeral services of whatever religion is
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closest to their family. The fact is that some people perform all those rituals even though they do not believe in them or know how to embrace them. Therefore, it is worth exploring the little details in rituals and ceremonies in different cultures. What are the elements that work and do not work for users in this digital era? I want to find ways to adopt those rituals to contemporary bereavement. In addition to enlightened traditions around death, I believe that we need to clearly externalize grief. If the society does not allow us to do this or has no space for us to do so, then in what other ways can we do so? I would like to explore what a designer can do to help facilitate that action in an empowering and beautiful way. The design interventions I am offering are not necessarily the solutions, but they will provoke emotions and public awareness in subtle and elegant ways.
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Academic
Virtual Memorialization
Grave Matter
John Thackara
Public Grieving Book of Symbols
Mark C. Taylor, PhD.
Altar &Shrine
Matt Barber
Transitional Moment Amanda Wachomb
Artisttic
Spiritual/ Belief
Karla Maria Rothstien
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Research Methodology
Hiding
On Grieve & Grieving LiveOn
GoodGrief
Psychological/Scientific
Smoke Gtets in Your Eyes
Megan Dalay
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Primary Research: Subject Matter Experts In my research I reached out to three major areas of experts. The first group I interviewed were academics whose works or interests are related to death and memorialization. The second area I reached out to was the organ donation system, where I connected with the organ donation center in New York. Last but not least, I talked to memorial makers, tattoo artists and tattoo wearers. I also had very good conversations with design thinkers and philosophers in other professions who gave me excellent insight into how I could expand on these three major areas.
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Mark C. Taylor, PhD
Subject Matter Experts: Philosophical
Associate Scholar, Columbia University GSAPP DeathLab Chair, Department of Religion, Columbia University Chair, American Academy of Religion Co-Director, Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life Books: Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living(2008) Grave Matters (2004) Hiding (1997)
“The virtualization and digitalization brought in dematerialization. Shift from stuff to images. Images to codes. And with that common, the delocalization; displacement.”
Professor Taylor is a notable philosopher and anthropologist who is also an advisor at Columbia GSAPP Death Lab. He has written many books related to death, funerals, and memorial cultures. Not only do his books offer valuable pieces of information and inspiration for my design works, I was impressed by his artistic and poetic way of analyzing the world. Similarly, he was interested in the world of grief and death because of his personal experience.² Professor Taylor accepted my request for a one-on-one interview and we had a great conversation on October12th, 2015 at The Department of Religions at Columbia. He first questioned my thesis title which was then called “Virtual Memorialization”. He brought up the subject of how many sophisticated technology philosophers, namely Kurt Zeil, a computer scientist at MIT, see death as an engineering problem. There is also an institution founded by Google called Singularity University that believes in experiential growth and the idea of using technology to create immortality. By naming my thesis ‘virtual’, it implies that I am designing to serve the movement. He also talks about the materiality around death and how it is integrated in the history of our cultures. I was very inspired by the works he shared with me. In Mystic Bones and Grave Matters, he expands his studies to expressive sculptures and photography, and also to the idea of location as a part of the materiality of death. ‘There are hundred and sixty people and only six are cremated; part of that is culture, part of that historical. Identity and place have been tied. The loss of places and identities are related’, said Professor Taylor. Finally, we discussed one of his books, Hiding, which is devoted to the study of skin and tattoo arts. He showed me the tattoo on his wrist and shared some insights he acquired from his studies. One of the most interesting ideas is that tattoos are tied to the moment of transformation. For example, most women get tattoos at certain points in their lives; usually relating to a relationship or to death. They see tattoos as a way to take possession of their lives and their bodies. Because most of our lives are about changes, we sometimes want a permanent reminder of a certain change or event.
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Subject Matter Experts: Academic
Karla Maria Rothstein Architect` Educator Director, Columbia University, GSAPP DeathLab. Associate Professor of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP. Design Director, Latent Productions. Research span intimate spaces of metropolitan domestic life and infrastructures of death and memory.
“I feel like the intertwining and confronting of our own mortality is an important part of augmenting the human perspective and of understanding our collective responsibility for the future. ”
Based at Columbia University GSAPP, the DeathLab is a transdisciplinary research and design space focused on reconceiving how we live with death in the metropolis. One of the reasons why I am very interested in this project is because they are not only creating future oriented solutions to urban infrastructure for death and memorials, but are also heavily focused on rituals of honoring death. A lot of the designs are very speculative and poetic, yet plausible. Through this connection with Professor Taylor, I had the opportunity to interview Karla Maria Rothstein, the founder of this research center, on the 5th of November 2016 at the offices of Latent Architect in the Lower West side. The conversation was brief, and we talked mostly about her starting point and her viewpoints about specific areas around death. One of the things that was brought up many times in our conversation was the fact that many problems are caused because death is not talked about enough. For example, our cultures tend to separate death from our daily lives; cemeteries which occupy enormous areas on the city’s edges are no longer feasible because of urban growth. If we learn to accept death as a part of our daily lives, we can start to use alternative spaces like the New York City waterfront areas as a space for honoring our loved ones. Also, it would be better if people spoke out more about their own desires regarding death and memorialization. How we deal with our deceased loved ones has more to do with the living than with the dead because the impact on the earth’s open spaces will be of particular concern for the next generations. Even though Karla addressed many issues about our society’s mentality, she pointed out the opportunity to intervene. A third of the population of the United States under 30 has no religion or religious affiliation, and they are not looking for one, so there are no mandatory rituals. Therefore, most families, if they haven’t really talked about or thought about death, default to whatever religion is closest to their family, even if they do not practice it. The fact that the current funeral industry does not offer us many options means than there are opportunities to introduce new rituals or concepts around death and memorialization.
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Subject Matter Experts: Philosophical
John Thackara Design Thinker Author Books: Clean Growth: From Mindless Development to Design Mindfulness, Innovation. Wouldn’t It be Great If...Designs of The Time Manual. London, Design Council, 2007. In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2005.
“People in modern situations with screen and media surrounding them, are not just intellectually but physically neglectful of life and forces and the changes that maybe would be more accepted if we were more in contact with the fact that the whole world is alive and we come and go. And just because we die doesn’t mean that the world dies. This is something that wisdom and traditions teach in different ways. ” I felt very privileged to talk with John Thackara in person during his book launching party event at the Products of Design department. The challenge was that we only had a few minutes to introduce him to our thesis and walk him through our areas of interests, emphasizing creating social values. While I was talking about the what I have done, John stopped me and asked where I was originally from. He was surprised to learn that I live in an environment where death is not talked about because South East Asian cultures are known for being a culture that celebrates death. This left me personally with the question of whether it is the traditional Thai culture to not talk about death or whether it is because I was brought up in a very modern family pressured by western society ideas that we kept silent on this topic. John asked me what did I see myself doing in the future. I told him that I believe in tactility of memory and want to create things. He told me that there is a lot of research on object pairs that have representative meaning. Animism, an idea invented by western anthropology, is based on things that represent something and/or represent memories of someone. While this is not a new thing, it is still a very rich area to explore. There are a few articles about philosophers and artists that work on why a photograph of a loved one has so much meaning even if it is just a piece of paper. And it is not about the artifact itself, but about what we project onto it. So the pairing of an object and an item we have from a person has tremendous power to represent things which are not really there; the notion of totems, heirlooms.
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Amanda Wachob
Subject Matter Experts : Creative
Brooklyn based artist who uses tattoo machine as a medium on different types of living canvases Works: Skin Data, New Museum, New York, NY, 2015. Think Ink, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Artist Studios, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, 2014.
“If tattoos didn’t hurt, not that many people would get them. If it’s too easy to get, not that many people will want to get them. It’s part of the fun of the art.”
Amanda’s works are different from other tattoo artists. Not only does she have her personal style, she has worked on canvases other then human skin, for example on leather and plants. The idea behind those works is the paradox between the permanence and the impermanence of things. The fact that tattoos are considered permanent but are being drawn on fruits that are are perishable, leather from dead animals, and human skin that will die one day, is very fascinating. Amanda also works on another kind of tattoo called ‘bloodline’ which is a tattoo without ink that fades away within weeks. I then shared with her my story and how I was drawn into the art of tattooing. After showing Amanda the scars on my forearm, she talked about the beauty of scars and how, at the end of the day, tattoos are just another form of decoration. Then we talked about the memorial tattoo, which is an area Amanda is familiar with because her clients always try to find meanings to their tattoos. “There is still a lot of sadness and loss attached to a tattoo, I sometimes really wish that people could just sort of use a tattoo as part of a celebration in that person’s life instead looking at it as grief.”
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Jessie Weiner
Film Director, Bollydancers, a documentary film
Subject Matter Experts : Creative
Shared her story on her first tattoo and her life after her brother’s traumatic death
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LiveoOn New York
Subject Matter Experts : Organization
Yie Yin Foong, LMSW Kayla Smith Maria Torres Family Services Outreach Coordinator. Family Aftercare Services. Dirctor of Donor’s Family Supports & Organ Recipient.
“The correspondence between the donor’s family and recipients; usually it is through letter writing. There is no time frame; some people wrote after 10 years”
After interviewing and participating in the event with LiveOn NY, I realized that many of my assumptions were wrong. To begin with, the donation center strongly encourages donors to communicate with their family members and make sure they understand the consequences. This does not necessarily mean that the family are well prepared for the donation process, but it means that they are aware of decisions they will have to make in the future. Another weak hypotheses I made was that going through the donation process is a lonely and dark path for the grieving family. The lesson learned from LiveOn is that the family correspondent staff are professionally trained and qualified to communicate all the choices to the family, and they make sure that the dialogue is appropriate for this fragile stage. Last but not least, I expanded my interest from just the continuing bond between the living and the dead, to correspondence between the donor’s family and the recipient. Knowing that you can still connect with your dead loved one is a fond idea, but connecting through the person who has a part of your loved one inside him/her is a fantasy. On top of everything, it is the beauty of compassion and the Buddhist notion of presence and impermanence.
“My donor was younger than I was. It took me a year to wrote back to my donor family because I don’t want to bring them back to the time and place of their loss. So for me, it was very difficult.”
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Primary Research : Field Study
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Primary Research: Field Study 01 : Good Grief Megan Dalay was one of the very first experts I reached out to. Her graduate work at MFA Design is called Copeful, a mobile and tablet app for bereaved children to cope with loss using art therapy as the main media. The project was inspired by her personal experience with loss in her childhood; Megan lost her father when she was thirteen. She joined a support group for bereaved children, Good Grief, and became a volunteer there. Megan strongly recommended that I should validate my hypothesis with potential users to avoid assumption. Therefore, I decided to join the peer-to-peer support group to be able to learn more about other people’s experiences with loss. In addition, I would like to explore how other people who are in the same situation can empower and motivate
Primary Research : Field Study
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Primary Research: Field Study 02: LiveOn NY Remembrance Ceremony & Luncheon After interviewing and participating in the event with LiveOn NY, I realized that many of my assumptions were wrong. To begin with, the donation center strongly encourages donors to communicate with their family members and make sure they understand the consequences. This does not necessarily mean that the family are well prepared for the donation process, but it means that they are aware of decisions they will have to make in the future. Another weak hypotheses I made was that going through the donation process is a lonely and dark path for the grieving family. The lesson learned from LiveOn is that the family correspondent staff are professionally trained and qualified to communicate all the choices to the family, and they make sure that the dialogue is appropriate for this fragile stage. Last but not least, I expanded my interest from just the continuing bond between the living and the dead, to correspondence between the donor’s family and the recipient. Knowing that you can still connect with your dead loved one is a fond idea, but connecting through the person who has a part of your loved one inside him/her is a fantasy. On top of everything, it is the beauty of compassion and the Buddhist notion of presence and impermanence.
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Secondary Research: Literature Review
Virtual Afterlives: Grieving The Death in The Twenty-First Century by Candi K Cann 36
Bodiless Memorial is a movement. From spontaneous memorials to memorial services, there is a key element missing: the dead body. Before getting to know this unfamiliar (yet is has been around for a while) movement, Candi K Cann took us back to the most fundamental practice, a funeral. The traditional purpose of the funeral is many fold, but it has two primary functions: the ritual that allows for the proper disposal of the body in a way that prepares the dead for the next phase of life after death, and the ritual that works through the grief of the community who knew the dead person. The dead body is central to the ritual itself, providing an encounter with the dead that allows the bereaved to personally confront death. The author quotes a Baptist who has recounted how a bodiless memorial left her feeling emotionally disembodied and how difficult this was for her own grief. The irony is that bodies and their roles in death and bereavement can be highlighted by embalming. Corpses become central actors in the funerals or grieving ceremonies. However, the attempt to preserve and present the body in a way that it seems like the living means that dead bodies are no longer part of our lives unless they seem like the living. Even more ironic, the most popular coffin purchases are those that promise protection from external deterioration, although we know that bodily decomposition occurs from within. The disappearance of dead bodies from the world of memorialization is as intentional as it is disturbing. Candi K Cann categorized and gave examples on memorializations without the body in different cultures and throughout history. The first example is in Asian cultures. In China and Japan (also Thailand), deceased become kami or spirits who watch over the living. The funerals still take place but the concept is that the dead do not leave the realm of the living. After the funeral, the deceased’s tablet is installed in the family’s house, where members make regular offerings of food and other materials the deceased enjoyed in his life and items to be used in their afterlives. In short, the place of memorialisation is separated from the corpse; however, the dead inhabit the world of the living and retain strong emotional and material ties with the living. The second example Cann gives is the kind of roadside memorial. For example, Ghostbikes in St Louis, Missouri. The installer uses materials that are involved in the death incident and uses public space for private memorialisation.
The grassroots level movement demonstrates the emotional and spiritual connection with the space and marks it with the symbol that draws respect from viewers. The roadside memorial can represent the act of reclamation. The third example is the shooting at the movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. Greg Zanis, founder of Crosses for Losses, found meaning in building and erecting crosses in memory of the victims. As a performing artist, he made the crosses to represent each victim and the gunmen and held a memorial event at the theatre, six months after the shooting. The mayor of the town frames the experience of the reopening and dedication of the movie theatre as a positive one - a moving forward and a healing. By doing this the space is reclaimed as part of the public and civic sphere. Timing is also appropriate; moving forward is seen not as moving on but as healing, and memorial artifacts are now part of the community’s past.
Secondary Research : Literature Reviews
Another example of a memorial in a public space is the Nickel Mines tragedy in Pennsylvania, where ten young Amish girls were shot, five killed, by a gunman in supposed retribution of his dead young newborn daughter. The man shot himself afterward. Not only did the Amish visit the gunman’s family and share the loss with them, they decided to destroy the school building and erect a new one. There was no memorial built, except for five trees planted in the young girls’ honor. Additionally, theological understanding of the body, and its role in both death and the afterlife, is helped by locating death in the actual home where the life was lived. There is essentially no separation from the corpse or the remembering of the dead, both occur in the realm of the living. In contrast to Nickel Mine, Sandy Hook revealed a rapid and enormous memorial response, one mirrored throughout communities in the United States. In was in close trend to the events after 9/11, in both scope and response. The spontaneous memorial was made in the name of ‘moving forward’ and ‘healing’ the community. There were also concerns regarding the integrity of snow, rain and the natural elements which made the makeshift memorial an eyesore to some in the community. The memorial was allowed to stay two months after the incident and was then taken down. Local charities then collected the artefacts, and put them together in a warehouse so that families would be able to go though these items. They also considered cataloguing the items and including them in a memorial display.
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Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche 38
Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist master who was the first person to introduce Tibetan Buddhism to the Western world. He explains in detail the fine line between living and dying. There are several things that particularly resonate to me and the thesis. To begin with, the chapter called ‘Unfinished Business’ explains why people hold on to their lives and are afraid to let go and die. There are ways that the living can help the dying to complete their incomplete business because it is usually caused by a lack of communication. This is one of the reasons why the Hospice Movement started. Each member of the family has to learn how to let go. One of the greatest achievements of the hospice movement is recognizing how important it is to help the whole family to fight their own grief and insecurity about the future. Another interesting chapter focuses on children. Rinpoche suggests that we should not let children think that death is terrifying. Children should take part as far as possible in the life of the dying person, and adults should answer honestly any questions children might pose. Children’s directness and innocence can actually bring some sweetness, lightness, and even humor into the pain of dying. ‘Helping the Death’ is a chapter that explains how we can take part in fulfilling the dying’s unfinished business as a way to help us survive in their absence. The beautiful introduction to this chapter expresses that, according to Tibetan Buddhism teachings, there are ways of helping people in every conceivable situation between life and death. With radiant power and a warm heart, we can reach out to help in all situations and all realms. Then the book suggests some spiritual practices for the dead, the dying, and the living. One is a ceremony that is conducted in the first 49 days of death, with emphasis on the first 21 days when the dead still have a strong link with this life. Another ceremony is the Practice of Phowa, which is a practice for the dying person to focus on the powerful connection between the dead, the place of death, and the time of death. There is also a belief that a dead person’s consciousness will go through death every week on the exact same day the person dies. Last but not least, the Sogyal Rinpoche talks about traumatic death. Victims of murder, suicide, accident, or war can easily be trapped in their suffering, anguish, and fear. They will be imprisoned in the actual experience of death and unable to move on to the process of rebirth which is why ceremonies play an important role in symbolically liberating the soul.
On Grief and Grieving Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. & David Kessler To many, this sense of being busy is a blessing; what else could possibly seem worthy of your time? If we sat and felt the emptiness, it would be too much. We want it done the way we think is best, the way that would be honored your loved one. We need ritual and all the tasks to go through with them. Take comfort in the busyness; it is the integral part of the mourning process.
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To some, they rode the scariest roller coaster of their lives and now there is more to do. They feel pushed and hurried through the feelings and tasks. Sometimes the rituals themselves makes them feel that way, sometimes it’s just the circumstances. Rituals can be meaningful to you, and you have to take care of funeral arrangements, but it’s okay to say, I need a little time here to catch my breath. I need a moment. Take time to feel your feelings and to experience them. Let your friends help, and do not turn down offers of support. And take a moment to be real. Let your friends help, and do not turn down offers of support. And take a moment to be real…very few of us are used to saying, “I’m okay, but check back with me in a month.” Let yourself receive the help, the support, the love. Note from page 196: For some the more sudden the death, the longer it will take to grieve the loss. The period of denial is substantially lengthened, with no chance to say good-bye and to adjust to a life without your nearest and dearest. When there is no warning, you suddenly faced with a huge loss and a need to make funeral arrangements. Secondary Research : Literature Reviews
This world of loss does not give you time to let your mind or heart catch up with the world around you. The final decisions that you had no chance to discuss with your loved one may hit you had no chance to discuss with your loved one may hit you like a series of blows to a boxer. Cremation or burial? What kind of casket? Who should be notified? What about the service? What did he want?
Hiding by Mark C Taylor 40
Hiding has many meanings, one of them is skin. The whole book talks about skin through different aspects and one of the chapters that is most related to my area of interest is ‘Dermagraphic’. In this chapter, Professor Taylor states that hiding is no longer concealing but it is a display of precious canvases. A Japanese doctor, Masaichi Fukushi studied the intricate tattoo design of his patients, photographing and cataloguing them. He felt that tattoo art should be preserved and shown to the next generations as an art form, so he used medical techniques that enabled him to preserve the dermal layer of skin. The Medical Pathology Museum of Tokyo University displays tattooed skin which is an opportunity to promote the craft of tattooing in Japan. In Buddhism practices, there are some rituals associated with tattooing. For example, Gatha is a magical spell cast while tattooing a person giving them a preternatural experience. The book also discusses the aspect of feminism in tattooing. Most women get a tattoo at a certain point in their lives; at the end of a relationship or a death. They see a tattoo as a way to take possession of their lives and their bodies. The notion that everything in life changes, but a tattoo remains the same is what draws people in to the art of tattooing. In short, the fact that there has been an attempt to preserve the tattoo shows that it is actually not permanent because the living canvas, human skin, is aging and decaying.
Grave Matter by Mark C Taylor 41
Mark C. Taylor uses personal narrative to explain his cultural, historical, and philosophical analysis on cemeteries. His childhood story starts and relates to dealing with loss in his family. Taylor discovered when he was thirteen that, in addition to his older brother, he actually had a younger brother and sister. Both of them died as infants so his parents decided not to tell Taylor and his brother about it. Even after the truth had been clarified, they never spoke of it again. Taylor discovered that his mother constantly mourned her lost children, for example writing diaries about how sad she was or keeping their room in the old house. The interesting thing is that the family was completely silent about this even between the author and his brother. The fact that they refused to talk about it interested him in this topic. Another fascinating thing about this book is that the author, with photographer Dietrich Christian Lammerts, takes readers to the graves of the artists, architects, writers, philosophers and musicians who have shaped Western culture; at once beautiful and disturbing, they suggest an alternative history of modernism and its precursors. In 2003, Taylor expanded this project beyond the format of the book to create an exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which included not only the photographs but also sculptures and video art. According to the interview, the author had his students gather dirt samples from the one hundred and fifty graves in the photograph for the exhibition. What intrigues me the most is the fact that he tries to prove that physicalization, localization, and materialization are necessary in human culture and memory. The reason is that a person’s death ties to places and time, whether it is the place of death or a significant time in life that the deceased shared with loved ones. Secondary Research : Literature Reviews
Smoke gets in your eyes : And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty 42
The memoir about the author’s time working at Westwind Crematory gives us a different perspective in dealing with the dead in contemporary society. The book describes the practical procedures and events that occur in the funeral home, and there are many emotional, ethical, and philosophical insights from the perspective of the author. To begin with, Doughty states that the funeral industry sells a certain type of dignity, which is having a well orchestrated corpse. “Funeral directors become like directors of the stage, curating the evening’s performance. The corpse is the star of the show and pains are taken to make sure the fourth wall is never broken.” (will your readers know what the “fourth wall” is?) As a result, the funeral industry is an experience design business because every moment has deep emotional aspects. Not only has the book introduced me to the American funeral industry but it has also given me insights related to some of the subjects I have been curious about, for example, traditional rituals, organ donations, and accepting loss and death. The fact that funeral homes in most developed countries are highly profitable private enterprises indicates how popular and widespread the ceremonies are. There are a lot of personal and traditional rituals associated with the industry and a funeral home director must talk in detail with individual clients to understand their needs and offer proper services. Ancient rituals remain in practice, for example, embalming to restore beauty for eternity and give the family an appealing last sight of their loved ones. On page 132, alas, Poor Yorick, the author, talks about her experience cremating body parts from Science Support organizations. Doughty illustrates the scenario clearly showing us how bodies that are donated to science will receive free funeral services and how the remaining bodies are delivered to the funeral home. The author admires the donors because they have given up on a traditional funeral and the idea of post-death dignity for research.services, there is a key element missing: the dead body. Before the author talks about many nineteenth century influential thinkers who studied and analyzed people’s relationship with death. For example, Geoffrey Gorer, a British anthropologist, compared modern death in Britain to pornography. While sexuality was a taboo in
the Victorian era, death is the taboo for modern society. In addition, natural death due to diseases and aging has been replaced by violent death in the twentieth century. Jessica Mitford, author of The American Way of Dead, strongly disagrees with the excessive pricing of the death business and believes that mourning families should not have to be bothered worrying about having the funeral home take advantage of them. In conclusion, Caitlin Doughty believes that by revolutionizing the funeral industry we can change people’s perception toward loss and death.
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Observational Research: Subjects of Interest 01: Transitional Moments and Breaking the Silence While in many cases, the word transformations or transition moment may imply evolvement, for this thesis these two words simply mean a behavioral change, whether it is a change from extreme sadness to celebration or from being outgoing to isolating oneself. There are many reasons why I am interested in these moments; stories from LiveOn NY, Good Grief, and my personal experience. The idea that the donor’s family and donor recipients are encouraged to connect with one another surprises many people, including myself at first. It all started to make sense when I learned that LiveOn NY does not only save lives of patients waiting for transplantation but also rescues the deceased donor family from mourning and isolation. One of the most important things they do is to ask the donor’s family and the recipients to write each other a letter at a time when they feel they are ready to do so. Usually the recipient will write the donor’s family a letter and send it through LiveOn. Then LiveOn will contact the family and ask whether they are ready to accept the letter. Some families have a hard time dealing with their loss and wait for years until they finally contact LiveOn to say that they are ready to get in touch with the recipient. The reason is that they are still in a very fragile emotional stage; they do not know how to deal with their sorrow and take precautions with things that may trigger their sadness. On the other hand, some recipients feel deeply guilty and take years to start to reach out to their donor’s families. For example, a forty-year-old recipient who received an organ from a fifteen-year-old donor, took ten years before she finally wrote the letter because she did not feel like she deserved the organ. According to the staff, the moment the recipient and the donor family first meet is always very emotional and beautiful. Some families build strong relationships with the recipients regardless of race or background. They symbolically become one big family. The family feels the joy of knowing that their loved ones gave many people a second chance to live, and some even feel that their loved ones still exist in these people.
Another transition moment I recently witnessed is at Good Grief. One of the young adults announced at the end of the session that she decided to leave. After four years of being in the group, she finally felt that she was ready to deal with the absence of her father on her own. The moment she realized this was when she was able to look back to the moment she was taking care of her father when he was very sick and see the humor in the situation. For example, she shared with the group that she noticed that her father was very fond of the nurse who took care of him, and she realized how funny and awkward the situation was. Another example was that she always thought her boyfriend resembled her father because he often said things that her father would have said, which used to trigger her sorrow. She is now comfortable joking that her boyfriend acts like her father, or that she is dating her father. I have always thought of her as the brave and outgoing one in the group. If someone was whining she would say something funny or adorable that would make everyone burst into laughter. Therefore, her announcement to leave the group didn’t surprise me. The interesting thing was the reactions from people in the group. They said that her leaving gave them hope that their grief could one day turn into something beautiful and drive them forward. My biggest takeaway from this is that thought. For my version of bereavement, almost all major changes occurred at the same time, which was during the two years after the accident. The first major thing was the change in role and expectation of my family and society. I had become the center of everything in my family and I felt the pressure of hope and expectation. I was expected to be strong and cheerful. I was also expected to accomplish a lot in life in place of my sister and brother. There was an abundance of attention and favoritism from everyone around me. For instance, my friends treated me differently and my teachers gave me privileges. The second change was an internal change. I was in a transition period of my life when I lost my twin sister. I was twelve going on thirteen and had always been very confident, courageous, and outgoing because I had my sister by my side. The accident caused not only physical damage but mental damage as well which caused significant personality shifts. I became more private and insecure when I had to meet new people who didn’t know my story. I was more concerned about what I wore and about how I moved because I did not want to reveal my scars. There was never any identifiable moment when we decided that we had to move on, things just evolved; the unfamiliar things became familiar and we got used to not talking about any of it.
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One very important thing I learned through my explorations of grief is that it is a social thing. When a group of people or a family grieve over a deceased family member or friend, they often develop their own mourning customs within that group. Many families are very open about their loss and reach out for help from support groups, therapists, or friends. They develop the custom of being vulnerable or of even celebrating the absence of their loved ones. For example, some families that come to Good Grief will talk about the deceased on a daily basis. However, other families prefer to deal with their grief privately for many different reasons. Mark C. Taylor in his book, Grave Matters, revealed stories of his long lost sibling when he was eleven years old. “They had known that this day would come but obviously were not prepared for it. Though they were both teachers, they never found a lesson they could pass on to others on the death of their children” The author was told that his sister died at birth and his brother was very sick and never able to come home. “For the next six years, nothing was said about my dead brother or sister, absolutely nothing.” The author wrote about himself and his living brother, “Though we did not speak, there were several moments over the years, I believe, when we both knew we were not talking about it. The troubled silence was not broken until our parents had died.”⁴ This means that his family developed the custom of not talking about death. The rule set by his parents was broken when they passed away. Similarly, my family’s way of dealing with the loss of my siblings is silence. I remember that when we first lost both of them, my father would sometimes start talking about them as a way to remember them; which would make both me and my mother cry. Every time their names were mentioned, there would be a slight silence, which we assumed was because of the emotions triggered by saying their names. Thus we slowly developed the custom of avoiding talking about them at all. At the beginning it was very obvious and awkward because we had so many memories together, but then it became easier and easier. As the years passed, the memories got older and further away until it was almost unnecessary to talk about them anymore. I can barely remember the last time I said my sister’s name out loud to my mother; probably four years or perhaps even as long as ten years ago. In addition, we were distracted by our obligations and duties, and temporarily forgot that we had lost two significant people in our family. For our family, our custom of not speaking about it continues. This makes me very sad because we have started to forget them and what it felt like to have them, to then lose them, and to still long for them.
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Observational Research: Subjects of Interest 02: Altars and Shrine` My exploration into both the historical and contemporary way of memorialization began because I wanted to investigate how and where the remembrance processes are located in the landscape of grieving for the bereaved. I came up with several design concepts and intervention approaches that are situated in different stages of grief. In this chapter, I would like to focus on how our culture physicalizes grief and my own interpretation of grieving rituals. There are three important key words that I stated in the product description; shrine, altar, and mourning rituals. To begin with the terms are used to refer to sacred and worshipping structures or locations, but they serve different purposes. A shrine is a place where we honor a particular deity, spirit, or other entity. A shrine at which votive offerings are made is called an altar. It is a ritual tool that holds other tools, and that helps you direct and anchor your energy. Mourning has been the overall theme of my exploration; while we may have outwardly dealt with death and grief in different ways throughout history, internally we still mourn the same. Shrine comes from the Latin word ‘scrinium’ meaning a case or chest for books or papers; and the archaic French word ‘escrin’ meaning box or case. In contemporary English, it means a holy sacred place which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines can be found in various settings such as churches, temples, cemeteries, home, or portable shrine. Although most religions use shrines as an object of worship and veneration, they are also commonly found in secular contexts.⁵ Some examples are historical landmarks, halls of fame, or war memorials. I find the example of Shinto Shrines in Japan most intriguing because of its unique way of carrying both spiritual and philosophical meanings. Shinto shrines are where kami or the spirit of ancestors and nature are enshrined. It is an expression of factual kinship which exists between individual man and nature or
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the earth. Many shrines are places of intense calm with beautiful gardens and deep spiritual atmosphere. Shrines are generally made of natural and humble materials, like bamboo or straw, and are intended to create a deep sense of harmony between humanity and nature Therefore, objects within shrines are made with as little human effort as possible. Another general impression for the word shrine is a public memorial. Public shrines are common in Thailand; every house or land owner builds one on the property, which does not only serve as an indicator of the land’s possession, but also as a navigator for passersby. Generally, roadside shrines can be built by cities on public property, or by business owners and private citizens on private property but for the public good. A commonly found type of public shrine in a city like New York is Ghost Bike, which is a way of honoring a biker who was killed on a bike in the location. I am particularly interested in the private expression of loss and grieving in public spaces. The word altar comes from Latin roots, Altare which is probably akin to the Latin adolēre. The word adoleō means to magnify or pile up or sacrifice, to consume or destroy by fire, or burn. Another meaning is to emit an odor or smell. Altar is a term used for any structure upon which offerings and worship are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found in temples, churches, or other places of worship. They are used in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, and some other practices. In Christian culture, altars are traditionally the center of holiness and worship, where sacrifices are placed and ceremonies are held. The design language of Christian altars is usually very grand and dignified; typically using natural stone slabs or wellcrafted wood. Other types of altars focusing on memorial rather than sacrament are commonly found in Protestant churches, called a Communion Table. These altars are usually simple tables that often bear the inscription: “Do This in Remembrance of Me”.⁶ While most Christian churches favor stationed altars or movable altars, home altars are very typi-
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cal in Asia. Family altars or home shrines in Hinduism are typically where gods and goddesses are placed, along with ritual items like flowers, or lamps. In Taoism, altars are erected to honor traditional deities and the spirits of ancestors. There are also specific dates that these home altars are used to worship and symbolically communicate with the departed spirits. Another interesting cultural aspect is a secular home altar that borrows ancient traditions to create a sacred space in one’s home. For example, Chinese influence altars focus on the flow of energy and balance of Feng Shui elements; wood, fire, metal, and water. Following Feng Shui law, you need to incorporate the five elements into your house. For example, wood element relates to natural growth and vibrant health, such as, plants, tree branches, or raw wood objects. Indian inspired home altars are usually associated with meditations and mind-body practices. There are usually images or statues of goddesses, sacred signs, or mantra reminders.⁷ In Thailand, the household altar for a Thai Buddhist family is a center of both faith and memory. My antique collector grandfather had filled our house’s 100 square feet altar with hundreds of century-old Buddha statues, while next to them are images and urns of our deceased family members. My sister and brother are now part of the collection curated by my grandmother, who took over the responsibility for the altar after my grandfather passed away. The concept of worshipping ancestors is very common in Chinese culture (we are fourth-generation immigrant Chinese in Thailand). However, images of young children in the alter are very heartbreaking to see in comparison to images of the elderly; it is a reminder of immature death and the lives they have missed . Luckily, the altar at our house is an enclosed space, which is why my parents and I tend to avoid entering that space. I remember we missed many worshipping ceremonies because we tried to avoid the visual emotional trigger in that room. If we had an an open altar, my grandmother would not put their images up. There are different elements of shrine or altar in different cultures. In Christianity, Candles are used during a service burning frame to represent prayer that rises to God. Candle holders are artifacts that come with the candles for safety and to elevate the frame.⁸ Candle drippings viewed after a ceremony or meditation, will take shape and form and have
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meaning for you. They too are created out of the magic of your thoughts. In many Eastern cultures, incense is used while practicing worshipping rituals. There are many different representations behind incense. For instance, the smoke represents communication with ancestors or heaven. Incense also symbolizes air, as the smoke rises our thoughts are carried up into the universe. In Buddhism, incense fragrance spreads and symbolizes the fragrance of pure moral conduct. This reminds us to cultivate good conduct. The interesting thing about both the candle and the incense is that they give the sense of time. The presence of flame or smoke indicates the ongoing ceremony. We can also tell that the time is running out from the remaining candle and incense, meaning we are toward the end of our ritual. I think it also gives a sense of the ephemerality of rituals or performance to the permanent memorial. The last element I am interested in is the altar stone, which is a piece of natural stone which serves as an essential part of the celebration of Mass. This stone slab with compartments containing the relics of martyrs forms an essential part of a Roman Catholic altar. It can be found as early as 2600 BC, like Stonehenge.
01 Shinto Shrine, Japan 02 Ancestral Home Altar, China 03 Micro-sized Buddhist Prayer Altar, Japanese designer Keita Suzuki
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I would like to elaborate on the ephemerality aspect of  memorialization. The word first occurred to me after the interview with Karla Maria Rothstien. She pointed out the importance and the beauty of memorials and remembrance being temporary and unforgettable moments rather than  a permanent infrastructure. This concept is reflected in her Constellation Park proposal; the deceased are honored in short-term shrines, woven into the built environment as an integral part of civic life.⠚ Semi-private intimate experiences and spaces for initial bereavement and contemplation are nested amidst public processional veins. Virtual memorialization, on the other hand, is a way to put the dead in a permanent magic space. The fact that our loved ones are out there somewhere gives us the sense of comfort, but we sometimes need to let go of our loss and move on in life. By not treating those who passed away as if they are still alive in social media, we will try to find a mental location for them and for our inner peace. This is why the idea of physical but not-permanent space for remembering really interests me. How do we provide a physical space for mourning that creates no sense of ephemerality and captures the moments.
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Observational Research: Subjects of Interest 03: Public Grieving The Colombian artist has addressed the traumatic history of modern-day Colombia, as well as wider legacies of suffering stemming from colonialism, racism, and other forms of social injustice. Originating in lengthy research processes during which the artist solicits testimonies from the victims of violent oppression, her sculptures and installations eschew the direct representation of atrocities in favor of openended confluences of forms that are fashioned from evocative materials and intensely laborious techniques. Many of her works transmute intimate domestic objects into subtly charged vessels freighted with memories and narratives, paradoxically conjuring that which is tragically absent.¹⁰ For example, Plegaria Muda, or silent player, is an installation of tables with the size of human coffin. One table is inverted on top of the other with live grass growing from an earthlike layer in between. The installation counters the anonymity of victims in mass graves with hand-wrought, unique works, and asserts the importance of each individual’s proper burial—whether in the United States, Colombia, or elsewhere. For Salcedo, the individual blades of grass evoke a sense of optimism: “I hope that, in spite of everything, life might prevail, even in difficult conditions . . . as it does in Plegaria Muda.” Another example is also the work of a Colombian artist, Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Crementerio-jardin vertical (Cemetery-Vertical Garden), 1992. Artificial flowers are grouped on top of the delicately drawn shapes on the wall that recall the funeral niches of a mausoleum. The work suggests the age-old practice of placing flowers on the burial grounds of the departed loved ones at the same time that it evoke a garden, a traditional symbol of life and rebirth. The fact that the flowers will never die also relates to the idea of eternal life. Cardoso conceived this work in the aftermath of a particularly violent period in Columbia’s long-running civil war, as the conflict between government forces a guerrilla fighters grew to encompass heavily armed factions of the country’s major drug cartels. Cardoso’s use of readily accessible, non precious materials as an aesthetic strategy is informed by a socioeconomic context in which
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recycling are inextricable aspects of daily life for many.¹¹ The last example from the South American continent artist is I Wish Your Wish, by Brazilian artist, Rivane Neuenschwander. This is more related to the gesture of collective empowerment and supports than public grieving. I was interested in the fact that the artist reimagine the traditional wishing wall gesture and bring it to the urban context like The New Museum in New York City. The work derived from tradition popular among pilgrims to the Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim in Bahia, who bind ribbons to their wrists or the church’s front gate in the belief that when the ribbons fall off or disintegrate, their wishes will be granted. In Ms. Neuenschwander’s conceptual-art variation, which will be displayed at the rear of the New Museum’s lobby, colorful silk ribbons have each been stamped with one of 60 wishes left by previous viewers of the piece. The show’s visitors can take a ribbon from one of 10,296 small holes in the wall in exchange for scribbling a new wish on a slip of paper and inserting it into the hole. “When I was starting off, I was very interested in the ephemeral, in quotidian materials that disappear or are subject to entropy, which is how my art got stuck with labels like ‘ethereal materialism,’ ” she explained. ¹²
01 01 Cementerio—jardín vertical (Cemetery—Vertical Garden), 1992 Maria Fernanda Cardoso 02 Plegaria Muda, 2008-2010 Doris Salcedo 03 I Wish Your Wishm, 2010 Rivane Neuenschwander
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Notes:
¹ On Grief and Grieving ² Mark C. Taylor and Dietrich Christian Lammerts, Grave Matters (London: Reaction Books Ltd, 2002), 8. ³ “About”. Columbia University GSAPP’s DeathLab. http://deathlab.org/ about.php, accessed March 20, 2016. ⁴ Mark C. Taylor and Dietrich Christian Lammerts, Grave Matters (London: Reaction Books Ltd, 2002), 8. ⁵ “Shrine”. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine, accessed March 8, 2016. ⁶ “Shinto Shrines”. BBC.co.uk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/ places/shrines_1.shtml, accessed March 8, 2016. ⁷ FP Brigette. “Bring Five Feng Shui Elements Home”. Blog.Freepeople.com. http://blog.freepeople.com/2014/06/bring-5-feng-shui-elements-home/, accessed February 22, 2016. ⁸ “Altar”. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar, accessed February 22, 2016. ⁹ “Constellation Park”. Deathlab.org. http://deathlab.org/design.php (accessed February 23, 2016. ¹⁰ The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, “Doris Salcedo”. Guggenheim. org. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/6179, accessed March 2, 2016. ¹¹ Bicentennial Park, Miami, visited December 29, 2015. ¹² Larry Rohter. “A Brazilian Makes Playful but Serious Art”. The New York Times.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/arts/design/22neuen.html?_ r=0, accessed March 2, 2016.
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Market and Audience Innovation Adoption Curve Death is a subject that touches on every human’s life. People of all ages encounter death multiple times in their lives; whether it is a family member who is dying with a terminal illness, natural aging, a sudden death, or one’s own decaying health. In this thesis, I focus on the experiences with the death of loved ones and the mourning stages. Therefore, the potential audiences are people who have lost someone significant in their lives. Since individuals grieve differently, it is difficult to categorize the types of bereavement or grieving. Twelve percent of the world’s population doesn’t believe in any particular religion. According to an interview with Columbia’s GSAPP DeathLAB Design Director and architect, Karla Maria Rothstien, a third of population in the United States under 30 has no religion and they are not looking for one. Most families default to whatever religion is closest to their family, even if they don’t practice, when it comes to funerals and ceremonies honoring the dead. Since free thinkers are not attached to any religious end-of-life customs, there is an enormous design and business vopportunity for an elegant and innovative proposal. Rothstein believes that marketing the impact to the earth we create after we die by providing meaningful, ethical, and practical products and services, will draw in the younger generation.In addition to ages and religions, the fact that death is a taboo and mourning is disapproved of in modern society helps to specify the user group. Even though the goal is to change public perception, we can start off with an open-minded audience; one that is willing to adopt new concepts. These people want to revolutionize a world that does not accept grief as a normal stage for humans. They are people who are not afraid to seek out support when they need it, for example, people who attend peer-to-peer support groups like Good Grief. Apart from therapists or support groups, there are very limited offerings and choices that will empower these people to be vulnerable. As a result, there is another opportunity to provide beautiful solutions for mourning and for memorializing the dead that can be offered to this group of people. They are the early adopters of a majority in the innovation adoption curve.
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User Persona 01: Vulnerable Griever
Users : Personas
Lenny Lenny is 29 years old and lost her brother in a car accident twelve years ago. She was very close to her brother and almost had to drop out of school when it first happened. But with the support of her family and friends, she was able to get through that first stage and was able to feel more comfortable talking about her loss among her close friends. Lenny has been an art director in an advertising and design consultancy agency for 3 years now. She is a brave, independent, and open person, always saying what is on her mind. Everyone at her workplace knows about her sibling loss. At first Lenny talked about her brother as if he was still alive. And when her colleagues realized that he was actually dead, they seemed uncomfortable and tried to console her. These reactions discouraged Lenny and, unlike with her college friends and family, she began to feel uneasy talking about him with her co-workers or even new friends she made. What Lenny really wants is to be able to have normal conversations about her brother and to remember him without people pitying her. But she finds it very difficult in our modern society, where the subject of death is stigmatized, not to be talked about, and mourning is considered a weakness. Therefore, Lenny gradually stopped talking about her brother in her daily life. She is still struggling with the fact that she is not able to talk about him and still looking for a way to do so.
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User Persona 02: Support Seeker
Zoe Zoe is a 35 year-old nurse, working at a hospice center. She is divorced and has a six-year-old son. She recently lost her father to lung cancer. Her father had been both her guardian and her best friend. He morally supported her, especially after she separated from her son’s father. She misses being able to share her son’s development or her career success, and she misses being able to ask him for advice. Working at the hospice doesn’t make it easier for her to cope with the absence of her loved one. People expect her to be strong and do not give her enough space to mourn. She often feels angry at the things around her. For instance, she feels angry when people act surprised that she is still mourning her father’s death. She sometimes feels angry when she sees a patient leaving the hospice; she thinks that person could have been her father. Finally, she often gets angry with herself for being angry all the time and not being able to enjoy life. Zoe knows that her negative thoughts need to be managed for the sake of her son and for her own health. She knows she should seek a therapist, but she isn’t comfortable visiting the one at work because she does not want her colleagues to know, and she cannot afford a private therapist. She decides to join a peer-to-peer support group and finds that it is very helpful to be able to speak about her thoughts and feelings out loud without being judged. Also, she finds that being able to express openly her thoughts makes her realize the depth of her grief. Due to her busy schedule, she can only join the session once a month, which is not enough.
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User Persona 03: Private Mourner
Users : Personas
Kylie Kylie is a mother and a wife in a perfect upper-middle class American family. Her eldest son, Joe, was the school’s rising football star. He was just 17 when he received a very serious head injury in a game and was pronounced brain dead. When Joe had turned 17 and was eligible he had decided to sign up for organ donation because he had lost one of his best friends in the game and thought it could happen to him any time. He had always wanted to save lives and be someone’s hero. Therefore, when Kylie was approached by the organ donation center, she and her family respected Joe’s choice and felt obligated to fulfill it. She did not hesitate to agree to the donation of Joe’s organs, even though she had to give up her son’s life. However because the accident and his death happened so suddenly and because her son was still very young, Kylie and her family found it hard to have open conversations about it without breaking into tears. As a mother of the two remaining sons, and the wife of a hard working businessman, Kylie felt obligated to perform her everyday tasks regularly as if nothing had happened and to move forward. A few months after her son’s death, Kylie was approached by the organ donation center informing her that one of the recipients of her son’s organs had reached out to her and asked her if she wanted to hear the message. Kylie refused because she didn’t feel emotionally ready for it.
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In conclusion, there are three different users who have to deal with different situations of mourning. The intervention I imagine is open ended so it will be able to serve the three scenarios. For the first group, the vulnerable grievers, the platform becomes an outlet for them when they feel discouraged by the environment they are living in. They will be able to write down their thoughts and feelings. Using the platform as a conversation starter will enable them to express their grief with others. For the support seekers who need to express their thoughts without being judged, the platform is a safe space for them to do so. They can also stay connected with their support team, whether it is a therapist or support group members. Finally, the private mourners are people who keep their sorrow to themselves. These people are not in any better or worse situation than any other group. Creating a design intervention that will serve the needs of each of these three groups is challenging. However, they share a single goal; to move from the stage of mourning to the transformative stage of loss without pain. By realizing their grief, the users will eventually learn to honor their loved one with peace and even joy.
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Speculative Design Objects 01: Seeing The World Through Pastel Lenses
Design Lens: Speculative Design Objects
The very early prototype was inspired by a popular social media intervention created by a group of Thai graphic designers. On Facebook and Instatram #everythingissofterinpastel is the hashtag that is used along with graphics of bad language words on pastel colors with a polka dot or striped background. Their intention was to explore how colors, patterns, and people’s association with certain graphic styles can effect the way they perceive the actual content. Looking at death with humor and sarcasm is an idea that was inspired by the writer and creator of the television show, “Six Feet Under”. The creator of the show, Allan Ball, has a very unique view on mortality, which can be seen through his characters and stories. He experienced a dramatic loss when he was thirteen and his experiences with the funeral home and mourning seemed to him forceful and unnatural. He said, in one of his interviews, “People think that emotion is unattractive. Let’s just not go there, let’s just bury it all and be sad. I remember thinking, that’s totally weird. Then I develop a sort of sense of humor and find humor in the most unlikely place (a funeral home) is a defense mechanism. How else can you confront mortality? You have to laugh.”¹³
“Seeing The World Through Pastel Lenses� is a speculative object, trying to convince one not to take life too seriously and offering incandescent lenses engraved with polka dots, heart shapes, and stars, that people can look through when they are in the bereavement stage or in sorrow.
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Speculative Design Objects 02: Surgical Tools of Death
Design Lens: Speculative Design Objects
Another speculative object is called “Surgical tools of death”. The concept came from my personal experience of being in and out of hospitals for years, and seeing both denial and acceptance of death in the context of the medical world of trying to conquer death. In a luxury private hospital, I saw the attempts to provide comfort and security to both patients and their family. Dying people were put out of sight, doctors dressed in crisp, neat gowns, and surgical tools were shiny and overly pasteurized. However, in public hospitals for lower income people, I saw beds with very sick people in corridors, small operations being done in the patient’s shared room. In this non-setup medical context, I saw not only death and dying, but also birth and hope. Speculative objects use people’s general association of death and dying and the medical world. Also, I played with the parallel world of life saving and letting go. The transfusion or “blood” bag symbolically and literally saves lives, but it also gives the notion of dying and the struggling to survive. On the bag, there is statement that says life is impermanent.
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Speculative Design Objects 03: Organ Donation Stationary Set
Design Lens: Speculative Design Objects
In the United States, almost all people have a Driver’s License, which they usually carry with them, and the license states whether or not you wish to donate organs. Thus if something happens to you, your wishes are clearly understood. However, in Thailand we donate our organs to the Red Cross and we are supposed to carry our donation card around with us. However, if one day you decide to leave the card at home and something happens to you, your wish cannot fulfilled. The fascinating thing is that it is a physical reminder that you can die everyday. The act of never leaving the house without this card is a beautiful gesture of the awareness of impermanence. Thus, the fact of physically carrying your Thai Red Cross Donation card is a discrete reminder of your donation to Thai people and represents the realization of impermanence and of no attachment to the physicality of your body. It represents an act of consciousness and honor. However, donation is not always a pleasant experience for the donor’s family because they have to go through the documents and legal papers during a sorrowful time. They may find making big decisions stressful and perhaps not make the best or most rational decisions. The donation stationary set consists of a donor’s card,letterwriting stationary, and documents related to donation policies.
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Speculative Design Objects 04: Fictional Newspaper (Utopian)
Design Lens: Speculative Design Objects
We will be living in a world relying on a body of ethics and culture created through the centuries by religious faiths. Technology and morality have evolved in perfect harmony. In 2075, humanity is able to communicate with the dead. We now realize that reincarnation is real and we can start over fresh if we do good in this life. Karma does exist! The myth and beliefs have been validated and we live our lives with consciousness and morals. We will seek religion and faith. Our consumption behavior will change; balancing technology and material consumption with spiritual practices. There are countless new religions and faiths emerging everywhere, which allow those who do not believe in the ancient religions to choose a new one; there is something for everyone. Meanwhile, traditional religious beliefs and practices still play important roles in our lives.
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Grieving
Death and dying Technologies will not only be able to save lives in serious and life threatening situations, but can also end lives. Scientists and doctors will focus more on engineering and developing a better experience for lifesaving and dying. Using human beings to save other human beings. Blood and organ transplantation will become very advanced. Every human being will be willing to donate their organs to save other human lives. In the meantime, patients with chronic diseases will be dying with less pain and in peace using medical technology. Families will also experience a more beautiful and peaceful end of life process for their loved ones. We all want to create or witness magical and meaningful moments in our lives. We all want to give fellow human beings second chances to live. Human beings have reached a higher state of enlightenment and stop all attempts to overcome biological nature. The reason is that we are more empathetic to the next generation; to our ancestors and deceased loved ones who are waiting for reincarnation. We talk more openly about death and dying. Advance directives will be mandatory for everyone. there will be no more confusion, conflict, or difficult decisions for the families of the dying and deceased to make.
Technology will focus on empowering the griever and mourner to move forward. Neurobiological technology will enable us to create well designed, highly engineered, and precisely calculated tools, guidelines, and practices for individual mourners who do not like to seek social support to move forward. There will be no more emotional disorders, mental breakdowns, or suicidal thoughts in the grieving period. As for people who like to seek support, there will be technologies to indicate what sort of support works best for them to better overcome their sorrows. We will continue to die and lose those we love, but we will use faith, spiritual practices, and compassion to move forward. Individuals may have a have different pace of recovery, but we all mourn gracefully and calmly because we know that our loved ones will have a better after lives. We look back to historical and wise traditions, and bring back prescriptive mourning practices, adapted to the modern society. We will also adopt traditional customs of celebrating death from other cultures. The majority of people will grieve openly and embrace vulnerability.
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Design Lens: Speculative Design Objects
Memorialization Technology and marketing will offer us unique and imaginative ways to remember our loved ones. Starting from the moment they die to the way we treat their remains decades on. There will be different varieties of cremation; ways that are space saving, eco-friendly, and highly spiritual. For example, Microbiummetadigenesis, an adjustment of the micro set in our body to accelerate decomposition, will become a very common choice in 2075. At a Constellation park the body will be put in a vessel within which decomposition occurs, and as the body decomposes it produces energy; the by-product is methane gas. This gas can be converted into electricity. For this project, there is illumination generated by the corpse. The vessel has an element of mourning light that glows and dims. This process can be as short as a month or two, or it can be slowed down to a year, giving the family time to mourn. When the decomposition is complete the remains can be taken home and kept by the family. While the vessel can be reused in another cycle, the location, or site, remains. The family is welcome to come to the location to remember even though the light they now see will come from other vessels.. The most important thing is the aggregation of the
mourning vessels, a temporal shrine, and the collective constellation of light endorsing the remembrance of the deceased, even though the physical body is gone. The idea of collective responsibility toward our own death will affect the way we remember our loved ones. In other words, the death of our loved ones will reflect the way we plan our own end of life experience for ourselves and our family. Countless popular, fun, and innovative experiences will be offered to those who like collective or collaborative memorialization. Magical, graceful, sacred memorializing experiences will also be available for those who like to remember quietly and privately.
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Design Lens: Co-creation Workshp
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Co-creation Workshop Vir/Actual Memorialization
Design Lens: Co-creation Workshp
The workshop was held on October 23rd 2015 at the Department of Products of Design. It was designed for people of all ages and professions who have encountered death or experienced loss, and are looking for ways to share their memories of loved ones. Posters were published and posted in various spots in the School of Visual Arts buildings to draw in participants. There were seven people in total who came from different backgrounds. The workshop was set up around two themes; past and future. The first activity was based on the future theme, where users were given a visual map of chronology from the present time to 2045, when we believe that the new era of humanity begins. The timeline was based on a layout established by the 2045.org founded by a Russian billionaire and a group of world leading specialists. Looking ahead to 2020, humans will have an avatar that is controlled by the brain. Computers and artificial organs will be very advanced. From 2020 to 2050, avatars will save people’s lives; people in a coma stage with disfunctional organs will be rescued by computers. Avatars will continue to play a very important role in the medical and military world. In 2030, we will be able to easily transfer not only our intellectual thoughts and memories but also our consciousness into artificial carriers. In 2045, we won’t need our bodies anymore because we will exist, without appearing, using virtual technologies. We will become immortal. On the poster, the light box on black background is the box of the future that works like a monitor or screen projecting virtual space where you share your memories and communicate with your lost loved ones in 2045. From this prompt, participants are asked to visualize their digital memorial space that they use to communicate with the consciousness of the dead. They were asked to draw or create a collage using materials provided on to a clear acrylics canvas. Then they would be projected onto the light box.
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The second activity took the participants back to the past. They imagined themselves born in the 50s growing up in the time when a person’s memories were only physicalized via artifacts, imagery, sound, and other tools that are non-digital. Each participant was given a white box, a keepsake box where the past 50 years of memories between the living and the dead were to be kept. Participants would create the contexts for their boxes, imagining how they would use, keep, or interact with the box. For example, as seen in the poster, my box has a white background and shows that the box I imagined had been buried under a tree where I scattered the ashes of my loved ones. As time went by I decided to dig it up and revisit my long lost memories. One of the most significant things I discovered from the workshop is that people would use digital space as a more sacred and spiritual space when using it as a way to see the world. However, the physical space is expressed in more personal lenses, playing with sensory and emotions. For instance, Michele created a collage using only text from old dictionary pages for the virtual memorialization. His explanation was that the space will be meaningful and customized to fit to each user, so the content plays a more important role than the visual styling. He picked words like hope, reincarnation, showing what words he thinks are associated with this subject. Another example is the memory box created by Sasha. She cut out the box and put in a small copper pipe which she said was the connection between the inside of the box and the outside world. Sense is very important to her so there was some sort of perfume incorporated into the box. From this workshop, both worlds are seen to have great potential because technology will become more advanced, while people will still crave for things that have personal meaning. As a result, I want to experiment with how design can merge the digital and physical memorialization.
01 Attendees were given the first prompt of the future 02 Social media icons , stationary, and mazazines were provided to create collage of the future of virtual memorial space 03 An attendee explained his creation
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People don’t want to memorialize, but they want to be able to have a conversation with the deceased.
They want the memory alive.
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The physical space is where people have the notion of impermanence and letting go.
They think about their own death.
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Service Blueprints and Mobile App 01: Preset
Design Lens: Service Blueprint & Application
Currently, in 2015, more than 120 million people in the U.S. are signed up to be organ donors¹⁵. In 2010, there were almost 2.5 million deaths in the U.S. Imagine if every one of those persons had donated.¹⁶ Of all the brain dead patients eligible for organ donation, family members refused in half of the cases. The number of families that give consent for organ and tissue donations to proceed jumps up from 50% to 80% when families know and have discussed the donation decision of their family member. ¹⁷According to a Behavioral Insights Team, individuals tend to go with the flow of pre-set options, or defaults, often regardless of whether the pre-set options maximise our individual or collective well-being: Making ‘yes’ as a default for the donor family; making pre-set predictions of the decisions.¹⁸ Together with the family every option is pre-set. Cremate or Bury? Mahogany or cherry casket? Donate or not donate? Pre-set does everything and no more second thoughts.
Of all those brain dead patients eligible for organ donation, family members refused in half of those cases.
The number of families that give consent for organ and tissue donation to proceed jump up from 50% to 80% when families know and have discussed the donation decision of their family members. The Guardian, Monday 20 July, 2015
In 2010, there were almost 2.5 million deaths in the U.S. Imagine if every one of those persons had donated.
U.S. Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint & Application
Pre-set also selects only the most ethical, environmentally responsible, and economical service providers. Support young blood designers or makers with curated selections of creative and beautiful artifacts related to funerals and memorials and make sure that your death is meaningful to others through organ and tissue donation. Encourage minimal ceremonial and artificial treatment to make sure that your death does not damage the earth with endless carbon footprints.
“ Our job is to ask the appropriate question to the family. When the family is in the registry, they make that decision and the responsibility.”
Yie Yin Foong, LMSW
Individuals tend to go with the ow of preset options, or defaults, often regardless of whether the pre-set options maximise our or collective wellbeing Behavioral Insights Team, UK
Pre-set app provides holistic products and services for users and their families to pre-make all decisions that they will face during the most difficult moments, thus allowing donors and their families to go through all the options together. By eliminating all the burden from the family, they can focus on the mourning process and recovering from sadness. The deceased will get to have their last wishes fulfilled and the donation center will receive the organ to help more transplant patients. For example, what are the organs that the donor wants to donate? Which religion practice or funeral service does the donor want? What should be done with the remains or the ashes? There is also a family care service that allows the donor to
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint & Application
Holistic products and services for users and their family to pre-make all decisions that they will face during the most difficult moment.
pass on the final word as time passes. The donor selects the family care service from the choices that are provided. The choices are curated for their personal preference and personality traits from the data the app received and analyzed earlier. If the donor decides to send a gift to the family after she/he dies, the details of the gift are selected: when should the gift be delivered, what message should be included, and what is the donor’s goal and true wish for the family? Pre-set will be the coordinator and the executor who helps to fulfill the wish. Pre-set encourages donors to think about their collective responsibility to the future by supporting ethical and environmentally responsible service providers. Pre-set also provides curated design products like urns or altars that the user can scroll through,
see the price, and make decisions with the family. Pre-set also helps fulfill wishes for customers who are interested in alternative body decomposition. Pre-set’s team of professional and experienced funeral experts, help sourcing the alternative services from all over the world, Finally the donor will sign the pre-testimony, which is a summery of the choices of products and services selected. Legal digital testimony or final will is signed with the donor’s finger prints and the witnesses’ fingerprints. The choices are subjected to change over a period of time in order to be fair to the vendors and to draw in more small startup funeral service providers to the system.
Pre-set enables users to talk openly about choices upon death.
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint & Application
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The final step is to sign the pretestimony, which is a summery of the choices of products and services you have selected
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Service Blueprints 02: Bloodline
Design Lens: Service Blueprints
There are internal stigmas toward being branded as bereaved, fears of being pitied, or of making other people feel uncomfortable. The loneliness caused by this protective and restrictive feeling is still unexplored. Grieving is such an individual journey. People can tell you that you do not have go through it alone and offer you support, but in reality it is you alone who has to work with your internal self. Every detail and aspect related to the death of your loved ones can affect the way you mourn. In my family we were all victims of the accident that took away my siblings’ lives and made us ‘the survivors’. I was badly injured and had to go through surgeries, physical therapies, and many medications.
“People don’t actively seek out scarification, whereas people actively seek out getting a tattoo. So sometimes in a way I think scars can be beautiful because it’s like your battle room. It’s you existing in life and it’s a mark that came from the real experience.” Amanda Wachomb
Living memorial is an interesting term. It is a way to remember someone or some traumatic event by focusing on carrying on the legacy of living rather than of dying. We generally associate living memorials with planting a tree or gardens, but they can also be in other forms.¹⁷ For instance, to a father, a child can be a living memorial of his wife who died in child birth. A scar can be a living memorial of a trauma or event that happened in life. The scars I have from the car accident have always been an obvious reminder of the event for me and my family. The scars have served two functions; a reminder of the pain and a remembrance of the love. Carrying these scars with me for twelve years has made me a living memorial of my sibling, which is why I am very interested in scarification and tattooing.
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Scarifying involves scratching, etchin or superficially cutting designs, pictu into the skin as a permanent body m
Design Lens: Service Blueprint
Tattooing is another form of memorial that bereaved use to carry a representation of their loved ones around with them. It is a memory that is intimate and is with you forever. Youth culture has made tattoos an acceptable form of expression in modern society. People with tattoos no longer feel excluded from society. Today among American youth ages eighteen to twenty-nine, nearly 40 percent have at least one tattoo.š⠸ Not only is a tattoo a personal expression for the individual, it is a piece of art you can carry around with pride and honor. As a result, I propose a service that allows bereaved to reconnect and remember their loved ones by using the art of scarification and tattooing.
ng, branding, ures, or words modification.
Cutting is a common scarifying technique. The process involves making precision cuts in the skin with a scalpel or other surgical grade instrument to create a redesigned pattern or shape.š⠚
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint
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Healing is one of the most important process of scarification. The healing can never be predicted for the reason that people are unique and the end result relies on the wearer’s healing, genetics, and aftercare.
Introducing Bloodline, a therapeutic way of liberating bereaved users grief and allowing them to express their loss and preserve the memories of their loved ones with Bloodline tattooing. Young adults who suffer for a sibling’s loss want to express their feelings and share their stories. Bloodline tattooing service allows users to mark their memory onto their skin as a way to express their feelings (or even as a conversation starter with others). The pain created by the needle of the tattoo machine represents the pain of loss, and then the art of the tattoo creates the remembrance of love and beauty. Each tattoo is personalized by the user. The vision is to change the individual’s attitude toward being identified as bereaved.
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bloodline
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint
Scarification at Bloodline is done in a special tattoo parlor where users pay for the tattoo artist’s service, and the artists get a commission for the Scarification technique. Experts in tattoo art, grief counseling, and youth culture, will help launch Bloodline. First time consumers and users will be obtained by using online platforms for bereaved siblings, to find people between the ages of 18-28, and by offering low price services and discounts when the service is recommended to other bereaved friends. The bereaved will first come to the tattoo studio and share stories about their grief and their memories with the tattoo artist. The bereaved will get to articulate their stories and observe their grief turned into images. The tattoo artist acts as a grief counselor or supporter for the bereaved by listening to them. If the user doesn’t have any specific art design, they will work together and visualize an image that is meaningful.
Bloodline package is purchased and given to the bereaved by closed friends as a way to show condolence
The service offers two kinds of scarifications. The first type is for those who are still working on managing their grief and are still in pain with their loss. They are users who are not ready for commitment and are still finding their way to a peaceful and meaningful life. This group of users is encouraged to get a ‘bloodline’ tattoo, which is the technique of outlining without any ink; using just still water to lubricate the needle.²⁰ It leaves a red bloodline for a short time after doing the tattoo, which gives users the chance to express their feelings and share their stories with other people. As the skin heals the mark starts fading and disappears, representing the moment for moving forward. The users can always come back to the parlor and have more Bloodline
tattoos or move on to the next level. The second type of service is a conventional tattoo that leaves permanent inked marks on your skin. This type of tattoo is for those who have come to the realization of their loss. The difference between Bloodline and other tattoo parlors is our expertise in tattoo as a therapeutic way of dealing with grief. We gather talented tattoo artists who specialize in visualizing stories and memories, and transferring them onto living canvases. We listen to their stories without judging and, by doing so we empower those who have lost loved ones to express their thoughts and feelings. Bloodline offers an expressive way for bereaved to honor their loved ones through a living memorial.
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Design Lens: Service Blueprint
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membership
bloodline CARD
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The bereaved can always come back to Bloodline to get another scarification because grief comes and goes any time and somehow you don’t want it to stop coming.
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Thesis as Business: Memento-Mori In Business Modeling class taught by Janna Gilbert, students take their thesis ideas into the real world. The initial idea for thesis as business was taken from last semester’s thesis business idea proposal, Mauve, mourning clothes and jewelry line. The products are for people who are struggling with their grieves from loosing their loved ones; using clothing and jewelry as a way for individual to express their feelings and dignify mourning. The target users are 25-45 years old professionals, live in Metropolitan areas, have busy lifestyle, and often shop online. They are struggling with the bereavement period because the modern and professional society they are living in doesn’t give them enough space and time to mourn. The problem today is that corporate only give bereaved 3 days to grief according to the bereavement leave law in some states. Crying in the office is considered unprofessional. You are expected to be strong and suppress you emotions. They need for alternative ways to cope with their grieves. Mauve offers two types of products; the readyto-wear line, and the personalization line. Taking the inspiration from Victorian time mourning attires, the product will be an outlet for users to express themselves and their grieves. The unique and authentic design will eventually create brand awareness. The society can recognize the features and is able to identify that the user is in mourning stage. The income will be from selling physical products. Major cost will be the materials, design, pattern making, and production. Unlike other
customizable clothing stores, the brand offers unique personalization service that allow users to explore the complexity grief and visualize it through clothes. The next step is to create a list of assumptions based on the initial proposal. One of my top assumptions is that people who are over 25 years old will have experienced a loss of their loved ones at some points of their lives. Metropolitan people may find the environment they are living in not helping their mourning process. Another assumption is that the users of this line are people in the professional and productive environments, who are constantly looking for products and service that are unique, personal, and special. To test the assumptions, I reached out to the subject matter experts I talked
Imagining ‘Mauve’ campaign
to last semester and sent over a list of questions. The insights I gain from the questionnaire results are very valuable and it made me realize that I need to change the business model. The first insight I got is that people don’t want be be constantly reminded of their loss, but they want to have some special moments for them to remember their loved ones. Another insight is that items that are appropriate for the users in contemporary society should be subtle and elegant. From the insights I got, I took a step back and think about what other meaningful ways we can memorialize the deceased. I took a train to Morristown, New Jersey, to join the support group session with the hope to get new inspiration from users. One of the thing that came up that night was that
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“I would want a photograph and a handwritten note from them. I’d also love some type of small object that reminds me of a favorite story about them or an experience that we shared together.” Interviewee01
Interviewee02
Design Lens: Business Model
“Handwritten/hand drawn notes/letters/ poems/pictures”
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anniversaries are one of the hardest time for the bereaved because it is the cluster of feeling of both joy and sorrow. Members shared their stories that Facebook account of the deceased sometimes makes it harder for them because there are unscreened messages, comments form the past, or contents that trigger their sorrows. Even unrelated post of their friend having a good time on the particular day could upset them. This inspired me to come up with the idea of anniversary boxes that are delivered to the bereaved’s door on the special day that allow them to truly feel the joy or sorrow of the memory without having any distractions. The only the artifacts inside the box that users will receive, the unboxing experience is also part of the service we offer.
“Every birthday, people will post things on my deceased sister’s Facebook wall...it’s so hard to read them.”
‘GoodGrieves’ member; Peer-to-Peer support group, NJ
Another important step is to find out how to curate what inside the box. What does the conversation between our business and the bereaved look like? After struggling to find the answer for a while, I look back into my personal experience when I miss my sister and brother; I look at the old photo albums. The reason is that thirteen years ago, we never have Facebook or iPhone and we keep our visual memory on paper not memory cards. The problem is that today users does’t take picture in film or print them out on paper anymore. We also have to recognize the fact that Facebook does offer memory
“Why a photograph of a loved one has so much meaning even if it is just a piece of paper. And it is not about the artifact itself, but about what we project onto it. So the pairing of an object and an item we have from a person has tremendous power to represent things which are not really there; the notion of totems, heirlooms.�
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John Thackara
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Image Source: Pinterest
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features like “On This Day” that shows content from this date in the past.²¹ For example, you might see past status updates, photos, posts from friends and other things you’ve shared or been tagged in – from one year ago, two years ago, and so on. However, the unique experience of sneakily looking through old photos for me is very powerful and what make the physical photo albums special and I think it is what Facebook cannot offer us. Therefore, I introduce “Memento-Mori” the service will take the content from the deceased’s Facebook account, physicalize it, and deliver it to the bereaved’s door. How Memento Mori works is that the user will first sign up for the service and put in the dceased’s name. Then the user will select the important dates that the user wants to memorialize. The service will connect to the deceased’s Facebook account and collect contents, posts, and photos from the particular day in the past in advance, print them all out on old-style photo paper, and nicely package them in an elegant box. Then the box will be delivered and arrived by the bereaved’s door exactly on the day of their anniversary. The bereaved will enjoy the ‘un-boxing’ experience and can be surprised to see some of the contents inside that are pictures they have forgotten about or never knew exists. They will ideally disconnect themselves from social media and enjoy the tacitly of the experience. After a practice pitch at Grand Central Tech, I received good feedbacks from the panel that the idea is thoughtful. The area of making the digital contents into physical is still very rich and has great potential. However, it would be more realistic that Receptacle is a non-profit operation because when people are being charged for their grieve, they feel disconnected to the product and service.
Estimated Facebook users die each month: 312,500 Death and Social Media Implications for The Young and Wellness
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Dead Facebook users will soon outnumber the living by Micheal Hiscock - Jun 26, 2015 www.theloop.ca
Design Lens: Business Model
Facebook Memorialization: Everyday, over 10,000 deceased Facebook users could possibly be friends requested/ tagged in a photo/ wished a happy birthday.
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How it works:
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1. User selects the person he/she wants to
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They select the most important anniversaries.
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The service connects to the deceased’s Facebook’ account, taking posts or photos they shared or were shared with them on the particular day.
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The service prints out the contents on old-style pictures and neatly packages them in a box.
Design Lens: Business Model
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Unlike Facebook where there are many distractions, the bereaved gets to cherish the moment of Experiences the old style photo album and memory box
Design Lens: Business Model
Design Lens: Products
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Products 01:
Mauve
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Design Lens: Products
Morning cloth was very significant in the Victorian period. It is not only a way to express their grief but also to announce their status as bereaved to the society. The interesting thing is that grieving is not something people were shame of and they announced it by wearing those clothes for years, some for the lifetime. For contemporary society, mourning is something people want to deal with privately or even secretly when it takes too long. The society has changed and the public perception that crying or  mourning is weakness have made it very difficult for us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability can help deal with sorrow and difficult situation, by allowing yourself to receive love, help, and supports. But to be vulnerable requires courage from internal selves, and compassion from external society. The mourning outfits in Victorian time were very prescribed that one can tell how long had they been mourning for or how deep their sorrow was through what they were wearing. For example, mother who lost their children wore white lace trim on her costume, which some parents might have worn to represent the purity of the child The interesting part is that they had set the expectation to the society that they should be treated in certain ways. While in modern society, people do not know how to react toward the bereaved. Some think it is better to be silent, some think that it will be rude. Some thing it is necessary to show convalescence, some think it will trigger their sadness. The collection of mourning cloth is an exploration of clothing that empowers vulnerability. Using the garment as a way to express your emotional or mental status will also help other people feel more comfortable to react around the bereaved. Instead of having to feel awkward about what to say or do, the others can observe the bereaved’s outfit and learn get some idea of their emotional status.Â
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Tears Crying is a stigma that attach to grief. When we see someone cry we automatically says don’t cry. The reason is because the witness themselves feel uncomfortable to see others cry and don’t know how to react. This result griever to hold back their tears and conceal their feeling, which is mentally unhealthy.The crawling neck top for both men and women is used to facilitate crying. Using textile technology, the fabric changes colors when contact with tears. The tears will create beautiful colors on the fabric. Friends and family notice the colorful top will understand the situation and know how to react accordingly.
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Hugs
Design Lens: Products
Physical contact is the easiest way to show convalescent and sometimes speak louder than word. Hugging someone during their most difficult time give them the sense of security and reduce loneliness. The temperature sensitive garment will change color and create marks on the jacket when someone give the user a hug. This create delight and laughter to the emotional moments.Â
Mourning Glossary Grieving is a complex emotional network. When one grieve, it is a complex sweeps of emotion. Sometimes we want to be left alone but sometimes we want supports from others. This product is for the bereaved user to show people around them what supports they need and how.
Image Source: Pinterest
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Branded Objects 02:
Design Lens: Products
Shrine
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Design Lens: Products
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01 Thumbnail sketches 02 Wire and cardboard models, exploring the form of the product
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Shrine
Shrine is a series of wall mounting altar that physicalize different stages or ways to grieve. Exploring the complexity of grief, exploding all elements into simple visual representations. The intention of the series is to offer the bereaved users something they can hold on to during the mourning period. Users are encouraged to store physical items that are important to them or the deceased and establish their own symbolic rituals or routines to interact with the product. Since mourning is not something we can find common ground, the series mimic small elements that are sometimes neglected during the bereavement period. The product aim to symbolically provoke vulnerability. The themes are easily recognized and associated by the bereaved themselves, but are very eye opening for the outsiders. Therefore, the series will also help announce some of the difficulties the bereaved could potentially be facing. For example, the first piece is called ‘Out of sight but not out of mind’. In some situations, families or friends think that it is easier to not talk about the deceased, so that the griever can return to a normal state quickly. However, there is no going back when you loose someone you love, you can only move forward with acceptance. E Ross’s theory on grief, states that the stage of denial when you do not or are unable to talk about the deceased remains until the mourner moves up to the next step. But the truth is some people are stuck in the denial stage for years, and are unable to get past it because it is the way their family operates or copes with grief. Whether it is in a cultural or emotional context, these types of people are trapped and it becomes too hard to break the silence. Therefore, the furniture will become a representation of that whole complex sphere where you want to remember but you cannot even say their name. You want to see their face but you can not bear to look at their pictures. You want people to remember them but you don’t want them to feel uncomfortable. The furniture allows you to mourn individually without shame
Design Lens: Products
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01 Taking the moments 02 ‘Out of sight but not out of mind’ 03 Personal items stored in one of the compartments
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Design Lens: Products
or awkwardness. Translucent panels hide away the keepsake artifacts or pictures, but when the light is turned on users will see the subtle silhouette of what they hide. Opening the blind is to provoke memory. The second piece is called ‘Balance’. During a period of loss people have to deal with two things; tasks and emotions. According to Ross, funeral arrangements and general busyness are part of the healing process. However, sometimes they can be so overwhelming that there is not enough time for emotion. After the funeral there are many rational decisions to make, for instance, sorting the deceased’s belongings and deciding what to keep and what to toss. The furniture plays with a visual balancing scale. One end of the rope is rationality and the physical world where users can put artifacts, pictures, wills, or other important things. The other end of the rope is the emotional world, which is where users are encouraged to establish their own ritual with the incense. Finally, ‘Memento Mori’ is a Latin word meaning ‘one day we must die’. The theory of reflection of mortality and virtues has played an important role in Western classical art throughout history. The traditional and commonly found forms of Memento mori art are skulls or decaying plants as a symbol of death. The concept of time is also a very strong aspect in this theory. The furniture is primarily a philosophical piece that represents that classic statement ‘Time Flees’. Playing with the word ‘moment’, there are present moments and moments in our lives. Users will light the incense to momentarily think about their lost loved ones. After the memorial ritual finishes with the end of the incense, they will place the incense remains in a big circle and fill up the circle as time goes by. The practice of keeping track of time is a reminder to remember the lost ones and to remind yourself of your own death.
127 Externalize
Internalize
Acceptance
Key Moments
Taking Actions
EPHIMERALITY ETERNITY
REALIZATION TRANSITIONAL MOMENTS
Moving Parts on Frame
Locate
The Frame
TAKE TIME
VULNERABILITY
PAIN
Open Storage
Compartmentalize
The Containers
HOLD ON Enclosed Storage
REMEMBRANCE
CLOSURE
LET GO
PRIVATE GRIEVING
Storing items in containers
Personalize Houseware
LOSS WITHOUT PAIN
Occasionally cherishing the stored contents
CELEBRATION
Ritualize
The Interaction
BREAKING THE SILENCE
BALANCE
Curating the contents that go to each compartment
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Part Name: Explode
Materials: Steel, MDF, Brass
: Dimension: Inch
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5.00
9.68
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13.72
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01 Steel pieces welded together 02 Getting the model cleaned up with artist/welder, Evan Yee in Red Hook 03 Spray paint lesson by classmate/ graffiti artist, Adam Fujita 04 The model in the spray booth
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01 Compartmentalize artifacts of memory 02 Choose to store or display 03 Framing the ephemerality of time
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Thesis as experience The Grieving Wall : March, 19th, 2016 6BC Botanical Garden The grieving wall exists in many cultures and uses the typology of putting written words up on a wall. One of the most common examples is the O-mikuji wall in Japanese temples. The o-mikuji predicts the person’s chances of his or her hopes coming true, of finding a good match, or generally matters of health, fortune, life, etc. When the prediction is bad, it is a custom to fold up the strip of paper and attach it to a pine tree, or a wall of metal wires, alongside other bad fortunes in the temple or shrine grounds. A purported reason for this custom is a pun on the word for pine tree and the verb ‘to wait’, the idea being that the bad luck will wait by the tree rather than attach itself to the bearer. In the event of the fortune being good, the bearer has two options: he or she can also tie it to the tree or wires so that the fortune has a greater effect or they can keep it for luck. O-mikuji are available at most shrines, and remain one of the traditional activities related to shrine-going.²²
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01 Le Postcard Assignment 02 Initial story board of an interactive public art wall 03 First protptype tested in East Village, using chain-link fence on the street
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Location scouting
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I have noticed that I always felt very serene and at peace strolling in the neighborhood of the East Village. The neighborhood has a great mixture of peacefulness and togetherness of people in the community who have been living there for generations and the young energy of new residents who continue to respect the serenity of the area. The balance between vendors and the community’s private property also helps to create charm and balance. It was because I felt at peace in this particular area that I decided I would look there for locations to erect ‘the wall’. I wanted to find a calm and restful site within this charming neighborhood, and I was surprised to find that there are over 30 community gardens in the area. I was immediately impressed with the idea of ‘the wall’ in a local garden, and I emailed the boards/administrators of as many of them as I could. I was delighted with the responses I got. One of the responses came from Soretta Rodack who who runs the 6BC Botanical Garden. We had a meeting at the garden to discuss a wall installation, and then emailed back and forth about the details of the installation. Having had the opportunity to see the space and talk to Sorretta, I discovered that having one big wall may not be the best solution because the only suitable location would have been at the entrance to the garden, and I felt that this might not encourage people to walk further.
Design Criteria The design criteria was crucial to the successful completion of this project. I knew we had to be well prepared and organized regarding the type of material we wanted to use both for the walls and for the message paper, the actual construction of the walls, and the transportation to and installation of them in the garden. In order to do this I prepared the following list of specifications:
1. The size should be compact enough to be transported in an SUV car from school in Chelsea to the East Village in one trip. The weight should be light enough for three girls to carry. 2. The assembly process should be within 1 hour and easy for others to understand and put together without the designer’s help. 3. The designs should compliment the garden. The structure should standout, but be subtle in execution by choice of material. Either translucent or reflective material should be used to create a see through effect to the wall. 4. The wall will be immersive to the garden. Smaller writing station units will be placed to encourage spectators and participants to walk around and select their favorite spot or a private spot. 5. The act of walking from the writing station to the walls is also part of the ritual, enabling the users to have a moment of silence, meditating, or thinking of lost loved ones. The message paper should be simple and easy to fabricate. Since they are three dimensional or tactile, users should also be able to easily assemble the unit and put it up on the wall. 6. Playing with the wind and the shadows, transparent and reflective materials should be considered ,as well as materials that are light and flowing. 7. The branding mimicking the traditional chainlink wall should be recognizable and easy to understand. Confidentiality issues should also be addressed
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Pre-Productions
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Emilie Baltz gave me a great suggestion on how to prepopulate the wall by creating a digital platform where people could write their messages, which I could then print out and put up on the wall before hand. I was very interested in the idea but due to the lack of experience and confidence in broadcasting or promoting a campaign on social media, I decided to look for alternatives. Two weeks prior to the event, I created Instagram accounts @the.grieving.wall and #thegrievingwall and started sharing them on my personal social networks. I posted work in progress, pictures of the garden and the neighborhood, some inspirational information and quotes. I also created an event on meetup.com and shared on Facebook and Google groups. After the event, the.grieving.wall Instagram is the platform where the wall continue it’s existence on the virtual world. Using digital platform as way to continue on the ritual of externalizing grief, creates beauty through words and builds community. To begin with, the physicality of the wall create ephemeral beauty, which eventually the wall will come down. Therefore, the grieving wall encourage spectators in embrace the moments and enjoy the ritual. Whereas, the digital world
allow them to revisit their grieves. They will also focus on the contents and the words than the gesture and the artworks. Individual piece of message will be scanned or photograph and posted on the social network once a day. As the digital wall continue to build up with the words from physical wall, it become the platform that connects people who might be neighbors who just first meet each other or complete strangers who happen to share the similar stories. The digital space also enable people who could not make it on the date to contribute their messages. My biggest struggle was with the message cards, because I was trying to find the right forms and design for every situation, until I realized that it is subjective. As the creator of the event, I have to decide what the performance should look like. I decided to use of the typology of the garden which is meant for remembering and healing. First the user will receive a package of message cards. As they read the instructions on the package, they can sit down at the provided tables and chairs and articulate their emotions in a written message. After that, they will walk into the garden which in Buddhism practice is a meditative oasis for the act of self realization. Instead of sitting down, walking and meditating teaches one’s mind to focus on taking steps corresponding with their breathing. It is a time for self realization and being present with one’s inner thoughts. Participants can also choose to simply walk in silence and think about their loved ones or enjoy the peacefulness of the garden. If they want some private moments they can select one of the walls that is not occupied or one that is less crowded. Finally, they are encouraged to read people’s messages that are on the walls and enjoy the collective art work they helped create.
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21.00
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01 Renderings of the wall in the garden context 02 ‘The Making of The Wall’; video published in social media 03 Installation of prefabricated parts of the walls
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Documentation
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The documentation for the grieving wall consisted of videos and photographs of the creative process and the event itself. The first part included the making of the walls, the prototyping process, the fabrication process, and some parts of the finished wall. For the process documentation, I managed to set up a tripod and camera and took many photographs and videos. Then I made a 30-second-video and published it on the event’s page. The goal was for people to have an idea of what they could expect from the event. For the actual event document, I managed to get a talented videographer, Derek Siyarngnork, and an excellent photographer, Vijchika, to help me. Since they were not familiar with the project, I had to create story and mood boards. The story board was very helpful not only for the videographer and the photographer, but also for myself because it helped summarize and visualize my thoughts and foresee the overall picture. I also created a checklist of the footages and images I needed to better communicate with my helpers. For the mood board, I put together photographs of nature or of people in nature that were either close up shots or had interesting camera angles.
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01 Video Storyboard/ Mood Board 02 The videographer, Derek Siyarngnork
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The Grieving Wall video URL: https://vimeo.com/162020597
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Feedbacks, Success, and Challenges The event went beautifully and smoothly and I was very satisfied with both the look and feel of the event and the experiences of the visitors. One of the most common expressions on visitors’ faces when they learned about the event was surprise and satisfaction. While one of the most common feedbacks I received from visitors was that they appreciated the opportunity to be able to express their grief in the peaceful context of the garden. Many people were interested in the idea behind the event and some shared their personal stories. Another compliment I received was about the visual language of the wall, the choice of materials, and the design. My favorite feedback was that there should be more of this type of performative art for the grieving and that this event represented a gift to the community and visitors. Initially, I set my success matrix by the number of people who participated. I was scared that there would not be many
01 A message on the grieving wall 02 An attendee shared her story
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message cards, so I invited everyone I knew in New York. However, as it turned out that there were many garden visitors and locals who were interested in the what was going on and voluntarily participated. Therefore, my success matrix has changed from quantitative to qualitative. There were about fifty participants that day, and for me the most important thing was witnessing the visitors carefully articulating their grief in writing, gracefully walking into the garden, and deliberately interlocking their message in place. There were tears of sorrow and happiness. There were smiles of appreciation of good experiences and memories. This was a very wonderful thing for me to see. There are three important decisions made that helped to make this event successful. Firstly, I kept the idea very simple. I wanted the experience and the designs to speak to the participant and to keep the communication as brief as possible. All the gestures in this experience—letter writing, walking, and
wailing wall—are simple and recognizable across cultures. Secondly, I challenged myself to think on a larger scale. By initially starting with the idea of a huge message wall, it was easier to scale down when I finally saw the space. Last but not least, I was not shy to ask for all the help I could find outside of school. I contacted friends, one a photographer, one a videographer and one with a car who lives in the East Village neighborhood. Luckily, they were all willing to help me and happy to be part of my work. They helped to make my event run smoothly and saved me a lot of money. Most importantly, I have made myself committed to helping them which leads to building more connections in the future.
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Notes:
¹³ "Amazon.com Interview with Alan Ball". Spiritualteachers.org. http://www. spiritualteachers.org/alan_ball.htm, accessed September, 2015. ¹⁴ "Future prospects of 2045 Initiative for society" 2045.com. http://2045. com, accessed October, 2015. ¹⁵ Kristin Miller. "Which country has the highest organ donation rates?". http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/01/organ-donationrates-held-back-by-families-refusing-consent-study-finds/ accessed October, 2015. ¹⁶ Melissa Davey. "Organ donation rates held back by families refusing consent, study finds". TheGuardian.com. http://www.theguardian.com/ australia-news/2015/mar/01/organ-donation-rates-held-back-by-familiesrefusing-consent-study-finds, accessed October, 2015. ¹⁷ "What is a Living Memorial?". Letyourlovegrow.com. http://www. letyourlovegrow.com/eco-friendly-burial/living-memorial/, accessed March, 2016. ¹⁸ “Millennials’ Judgments about Recent Trends Not So Different,” Pew Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/01/07/millennialsjudgments-about-recent-trends-not-so-different/, accessed, March, 2015. ¹⁹ "Scarification" Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarification. accessed Febuary, 2016. ²⁰ Skype Interview with Amanda Wachob ²¹ Jonathan Gheller "Introducing On This Day: A New Way to Look Back at Photos and Memories on Facebook". Newsroom.fb.com. http://newsroom. fb.com/news/2015/03/introducing-on-this-day-a-new-way-to-look-back-atphotos-and-memories-on-facebook/. accessed March, 2016. ²² "Omikuji: Fortune-Telling Paper Strips". ZoomingJapan.com. http:// zoomingjapan.com/wiki/omikuji-fortune-telling-paper-strips/ accessed Febuary, 2016.
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Moving Forward As a designer we were taught not to be your own users; do not design things for yourself. I understood the essence and significance of this advice. However, I feel that I have been doing just that for the past year. I have been my own user. Hopefully my designs, which filled a personal need, are not only stylish but relevant and useful for others, who are struggling with heartbreak and anguish and perhaps the guilt of being the survivor. The hereafter has been a very challenging journey for me. Stepping out of my comfort zone, I went through many emotional moments and it took me a semester to become vulnerable and tell my own story. It was hard for me in class talking about such a complex and subjective topic as death and grieving, as if I was an observer. I kept saying that I had had experiences, but no one knew what those experiences were, which raised skepticism and doubts. The most difficult part for me was not being able to share my works with my parents in Thailand. They are both art and design enthusiasts and have been my biggest supporters throughout my academic years. It broke my heart not to be able to share with them the value of what I was doing. However I felt that I could not do so because I was scared and worried about how they would react to this subject that we never talked about at home. Throughout the silent journey, I felt blessed and grateful for having subject matter experts and potential users I interviewed with whom I could share my story, and for the stories they shared with me. It was hard at the beginning. As we were approaching the end of the semester, I found it easier to talk about my experience and finally I expressed my thirteen years of grief openly at the first semester thesis defense. I burst into tears in the middle of my presentation, but it was worth everything. I felt relieved and at peace to finally be able to talk about my feelings. This thesis process has proved very helpful to me in overcoming my grief and loss by providing the opportunity to express myself in creative and artistic ways. The next big step for me is to talk about it with my parents. I want my parents to also celebrate my siblings’
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(their children’s) absence and their continued existence in our hearts. I want to share with them the whole journey I have gone through. This thesis is a tribute to my family and to all families who have suffered loss. Most of the concepts in my thesis somehow refer back to my personal journey of grief. I have been focusing on what came after the accident and how we deal with life after the death of our loved ones. I feel that it has been very valuable for me and hopefully for other people as well. As we are approaching the end, I remember the statement I made on the very first thesis proposal day, ’I want to be able to remember the happy moments, by looking beyond the grief itself’. Through the journey, I have learned that it is very difficult to live with the mindset that our loved one is forever gone. I have also learned how powerful grieving is in the healing process. Therefore, I put my bias/prejudice/preconception aside and let the research lead the works.‘The Grieving Wall’ offered a new experience for people to express their sadness, by designing a new ritual. While the writing of this thesis has offered me emotional satisfaction, I did not get the opportunity to revisit memories I had before the car accident. I feel that I am now ready to overtly recollect these childhood memories by including work that is especially related to memory. An example of this is ‘Enshrine’, where compartments are provided to store important items of your lost loved ones. While this thesis has dealt with death and grief, I feel that my next chapter will primarily focus on memories. I look forward to exploring the facet of design for memories.
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Bibliography “About”. Columbia University GSAPP’s DeathLab. http:// deathlab.org/about.php, accessed March 20, 2016. “Altar”. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar, accessed February 22, 2016. “Altars and Shrines.” Seeking. April 24, 2014. Accessed March 5, 2016. http://gleewood.org/seeking/practices/altarsand-shrines/. "Amazon.com Interview with Alan Ball". Spiritualteachers. org. http://www.spiritualteachers.org/alan_ball.htm, accessed September, 2015. Bicentennial Park, Miami, visited December 29, 2015. “Buddhist Studies: Devotional Practices and Objects.” Buddhist Studies: Devotional Practices and Objects. Accessed March 5, 2016. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/ observances.htm. Cann, Candi K. (2014-05-28). Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-First Century (Material Worlds). The University Press of Kentucky. Kindle Edition. Doughty, Caitlin. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014. The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Kyoha Shinto.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Accessed March 5, 2016. http:// www.britannica.com/topic/Kyoha-Shinto. FP Brigette. “Bring Five Feng Shui Elements Home”. Blog. Freepeople.com. http://blog.freepeople.com/2014/06/bring5-feng-shui-elements-home/, accessed February 22, 2016. "Future prospects of 2045 Initiative for society" 2045.com.
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http://2045.com, accessed October, 2015. Guggenheim. “Doris Salcedo.” Accessed March 8, 2016. http:// www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/6179. Jonathan Gheller "Introducing On This Day: A New Way to Look Back at Photos and Memories on Facebook". Newsroom.fb.com. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/03/introducing-on-this-daya-new-way-to-look-back-at-photos-and-memories-on-facebook/. accessed March, 2016. Kristin Miller. "Which country has the highest organ donation rates?". http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/01/ organ-donation-rates-held-back-by-families-refusing-consentstudy-finds/ accessed October, 2015. Larry Rohter. “A Brazilian Makes Playful but Serious Art”. The New York Times.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/arts/ design/22neuen.html?_r=0, accessed March 2, 2016 Melissa Davey. "Organ donation rates held back by families refusing consent, study finds". TheGuardian.com. http://www. theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/01/organ-donationrates-held-back-by-families-refusing-consent-study-finds, accessed October, 2015. “Millennials’ Judgments about Recent Trends Not So Different,” Pew Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/01/07/ millennials-judgments-about-recent-trends-not-so-different/, accessed, March, 2015. "Omikuji: Fortune-Telling Paper Strips". ZoomingJapan.com. http://zoomingjapan.com/wiki/omikuji-fortune-telling-paperstrips/ accessed Febuary, 2016. Rinpoche, Sogyal. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Edited by Patrick Gaffney and Andrew Harvey. San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1992. Ronnberg, Ami, and Kathleen Martin. The Book of Symbols. Köln: Taschen, 2010.
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Ross, Elizabeth Kobler, M.D., and David Kessler. On Grief & Grieving Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. New York: Scribner, 2014. Rohter, Larry. “A Brazilian Makes Playful but Serious Art.” The New York Times. June 21, 2010. Accessed March 8, 2016. http:// www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/arts/design/22neuen.html?_r=1. "Scarification" Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Scarification. accessed Febuary, 2016. “Shinto Shrines”. BBC.co.uk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/places/shrines_1.shtml, accessed March 8, 2016. “Shrine”. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine, accessed March 8, 2016. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, “Doris Salcedo”. Guggenheim.org. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/ past/exhibit/6179, accessed March 2, 2016. Taylor, Mark C. Field Notes from Elsewhere. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Taylor, Mark C., and Dietrich Christian. Lammerts. Grave Matters. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Taylor, Mark C. Hiding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. "What is a Living Memorial?". Letyourlovegrow.com. http:// www.letyourlovegrow.com/eco-friendly-burial/living-memorial/, accessed March, 2016.
Thank You
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Allan Chochinov Andrew Scholoss Sinclair Smith Emilie Baltz Steven Dean Brent Arnold Janna Gilbert Abby Covert and the rest of the PoD faculty Tak Cheung John Heida Boris Klompus Marko Manriquez Alisha Wessler Gabrielle Kellner My beloved class of 2016 and class of 2017 Wanjung Hung Judy Chi Ziyun Qi Louise-Anne van’t Riet Leila Santiago Isioma Iyamah Jonathan Lung Eden Lew Adam Fujita Natsuki Hayashi
Souvik Paul Adem Onalan Chelsea Stewart Marianna Mezhibovskaya Tahnee Pantig Belen Tenerio Roya Ramezani Oscar De La Herra Gomez Lijia Yang Chonladhee Sehaumpai Kritbodee Chaicharoen Fah Tosayanond Maprang Aroonrut Prim Amatyakul Derek Siyarngnork Vijchika Udomsirianan Natha Khunprasert Shannon Moore Punika Chaiyawat Jane Fujita Chen Chen Kai Williams LiveOn, New York GoodGrief, New Jersey 6BC Botanical Garden
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