Thursday, 4 June 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
thesis last
http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/5/22/2451924/The%20story%20of%20an%20invisible%20wound.pdf
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Monday, 13 April 2009
The story of an invisble wound magazine
https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/935448/the%20invisilbe%20wound.pdf
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Thesis first draft
Introduction
The Story of An Invisible Wound
Don't turn away.
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.
Rumi
The starting point and the interest on my thesis topic come from my personal experience of bereavement.
Death occured in my life for the first time when I was 8. My grand mother died with a cancer and she was 59. When I saw her corpse lying on the bed, I was not afraid and I gave her a smile as a goodbye.
Seventeen years later, I was 25. It was the panic year of S.A.R.S in Hong Kong, people were masked and afraid of the mortality and an invisible virus. Suddenly death became very close to the living in such an urban city.
That same year I lost my father and two uncles. All happened very sudden and unexpected. Although I understand death is unavoidable and it is part of the natural cycle of human beings, when it happened this did not help me to rationalize my emotions. The bereavement experience was long, difficult and painful, but today I can see the beauty within the bandaged place.
This research investigates particular ways that design can be used through the process of bereavement in the West. To be able to answer this question, investigation on the meaning of death and bereavement will be conducted under different perspectives. The data collected for this thesis is based partly from published material in the area of death and bereavement and partly from interviews with experts and interviewers.
Can contemporary design aid the process of bereavement?
Hypothesis: Objects and ritual influence bereavement, and yet have lost their place in the cultural time frames of bereavement. How design can be supportive in this transitional period of grief and giving a new meaning of mourning ritual which is more appropriate in our western society context?
The lost of a loved one can be a painful and confusing experience for the bereaved.
Bereavement touches all of us sometime during our lifetime. According to Statistics Netherlands, an average of 362 people died each day in this country, with more than 132,000 deaths in 2007.
When death occurs, we expect rightly that we will need to adjust to huge changes. In a study from Harvard University, bereaved people suffered from an increase in depression, anxiety, tension and they experienced greater problems of the cardiovascular system. Under the concern of health and well being of a person, there is an actual need to address grief.
It is certain the impact of bereavement varies from person to person and from culture to culture, it cannot be understood from a static or linear perspective.
Social understanding of death and the ways of dealing with death in the West have changed dramatically and continually, though perhaps most drastically during the last century.
The idea of death often associated with taboo and repressed, and consequently mourning becomes introvert.
Issues around death are often difficult and complex. Each death recalls all death. And each mirrors small symbolic deaths and passing; the end of relationships, of ideals, of a myriad moment lost. The suffering around death is one of our most formative human experiences.
This project aims to bring more sensibility and openness on bereavement and consequently on death in today’s western society. My approach does not have a treatment goal, but rather to attempt and support the bereaved by creating a new typology of mourning, which is considerate of our contemporary speed of life and the nomadic patterns between us.
Chapter one: Death across culture and time (+visual supports)
Death has generated the largest number of rituals, each culture has worldview includes beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life and what happens after death. Most of them are based on a belief in an afterlife or reborn, whether leave food, clothing and implement in the burial place as in the Paleolithic Age, or offer prayers at graveside, the purpose is the same: The community that nourished in life is also nourished in death. Death has a place within the community and it is a departure from the community.
It is certain that death ritual is focused on the dead, but simultaneously on life as Metcalf & Huntington suggested, ‘ the issue of death throws into relief the most important cultural values by which people live their lives and evaluate their experiences. Life becomes transparent against the background of death, and fundamental social and cultural issues are revealed.’ (1991:25)
Distancing death from the living.
Twentieth- century social understanding of death and technological development in Western society have significantly influenced the ways of dealing with death and consequently increased the prevalence of complicated mourning. Multiples factors have contributed to this development, among others, urbanization, industrialization, deritualization, increased social mobility, social reorganization, medical advances etc.
Death as taboo? Fear of death?
The acceptance of death requires a confrontation with fear, at base, fear of death is a very common emotional response to death.
Theorists like Ernest Becker believes that the fear of death is a major motivator of all behavior. When the fear of death is handled properly, it can be a positive force which motivates individuals into phenomenal achievements with the goal that those achievements would transcend their physical mortality. (1973- Becker, E. The denial of death. New York: Free Press.) However, this same fear can become destructive and could even result in physical and mental problems when it is not properly handled.
The complexity of this construct suggests that death anxiety is likely to manifest itself in various ways. One of the most common ways in which we display is through avoidance (e.g., Kastenbaum, 1999).
For London based artist Inventory this avoidance in Western society is covered by material consumption and mediated reality. It distances us from actual responses, feelings and even lived interactions.
“Our material world, the moraine of our existence, provokes nothing more than the profoundest disquiet. Supposing we were to make inventory of everything we owned, all our possessions. What could this accumulated data say to us? – Nothing more than the extreme poverty of modern life. For all our constructions, our technologies, our material cultures attempt to mask our corporeal existence- our true materiality. Our flesh, our bones, our laughter and screams are our material condition, and no intellectual formulation, no technological construction or scientific data will bury this understanding indefinitely.’
But on the other hand, some societies appear to be more accepting of death. The Truskese of Micronesia are an example of a death-affirming society where people start preparing for death at age 40. This acceptance ought to manifest itself in lower death anxiety levels.
Displacement of death
For many thousand of years, death, funerary and mourning rites were not very different in the West then other part of the world.
The old rites still persist in large areas of the West, but according to French historian Phillippe Aries our cultural views of death have changed from a position that death was omnipresent and its inevitability accepted, to a perspective he titles ‘forbidden death’ where death is seen as something almost shameful and not to be discussed.
This change happened quickly between 1930 and 1950, especially in the more technologically developed and urban areas. “One no longer died at home in the bosom of one’s family, but in the hospital alone.’ (Aries p.87) The essence of this ‘new’ death is invisibility, a desire for death to retreat from the family and to be confined to hospitals and increasingly, to the hospices. California Sociologist Robert Fulton estimates that the average American family can go for 20 years without encountering death.
This invisibility influences strongly on Western’s worldview towards death, according to British social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer (1905-85) on his article ‘the pornography of death’. His observation is based on the difference between cultural attitudes toward death in the Victorian era and in twentieth century. He points out that death is having the same position in modern life then sex was treated in the nineteenth century. In our society death is avoided and hidden like sex in the past. In Victorian period death was discussed openly and freely as sex is today.
This came as always after some struggle, and a century later had lost ground to conversations of new taboos.
This conscious or unconscious avoidance affects our way of grieving and influence the way how we mourn in large areas of the West.
If we are not expressing our grief, what might happen to it?
Psychology Professor Harry W. Martin of Texas Southwestern Medical School points out the danger of the decline in expression of grief. ‘slick, smooth operation of easing the corpse out, but saying no to
weeping and wailing and expressing grief and loneliness. What effect does this have on us psychologically? It may means that we have to mourn covertly, by subterfuge – perhaps in various degrees of depression, perhaps in mad flights of activity, perhaps in booze.’
Chapter two:But what is grief? Mourning and Bereavement?
‘Grief is a state of mind; bereavement a condition. Both are mediated by mourning, a set of acts and gestures through which survivors express grief and pass through stages of bereavement.’ (pg.29, J. Winter, Sites of memory Sites of mourning, Cambridge University press, 1995)
A bereaved may be affected on two levels - internal: psychological and spiritual
- external: physical, behavioral and social
In this chapter I will explore the difference between grief, mourning. An overview will be given on the concept on grief in the West and the development of mourning across time and cultures through visual support.
Learning from their wounds
‘Grief is like a ripple, it becomes bigger than bigger, you never know when it will stop… and maybe it will never stop.’ from interviewer M.
Findings from my one to one conversations with bereaved in Belgium and in The Netherlands, approximately six months after the death, as well as six years and ten years later.
Conversation with respondent included many open-ended questions. This approach allows them to share their stories and experiences with me.
Each story is unique and each person grieves in a very different way.
Some people suffer hardly then gradually accept the lost and moving on to new structure of life.
Some people have more difficulty to adapt, unable to moving on and feeling loneliness and despair for years after.
Some people prefer avoids the pain and erased the dead from their memory.
The length of their mourning period varies, sometimes it takes few months. Sometimes it takes more than two years. Sometimes it is still processing. It shows there is no standard time-frame which can be applied for every person. It is interesting to notice from the internet, books etc, that the idea of curing, coping, get over it etc, these terms are frequently used in association with grief.
‘In many Western cultures today, the experience of grief is spoken of as something to overcome, get over, and resolve so that one can move on and be finished with it. With that end in mind, the medical model of care-giving prescribes ‘treating’ the bereaved ‘patient’ as quickly as possible to promote a swift return to the previous level of functioning.’ (pg. 24-Peggy P. Whiting, Laura S. Wheat, and Loretta J. Bradley)
According to Dr. Phyllis R. Silverman, when grief is viewed as a life-cycle transition it is easier to see that grief is more than the expression of extreme feelings. It involves multiples lost - lost of the person, lost of self in the relationship and a way of life is lost as well. It is a time of loss and change in the bereaved’s life.
Another finding from her research of the Child Bereavement Study is that grief does not end at a given time. (Silverman and Nickman, 1996; Silverman 2000) The bereaved and the children often feel isolated, as if something wrong with them, when their experience does not coincide with the advice they are given to ‘seek closure’, ‘to’ put the past behind them, or to ‘let their grief go’.
Although all my interviewers have their unique way to go through grief, but most of them told me that grief never really goes away, but lessens over time. “This invisible wound is like a physical wound, it needs its own time to heal but the scar could never disappeared.” says interviewer M.
Important indicators for any efforts at aiding in bereavement, are to investigate personal time frames and processes as well as striving for an improved communication concerning the nature and symptoms of grief, in order to grease the transition to a more transparent pattern.
What is mourning? And how does ritual aid in the grieving process?
‘I know of almost no culture where death is easily taken in stride by the mourners. In the long run, yes people deal… and sometimes they find ways of avoiding the new reality as for example in the aboriginals of Australia who are forbidden to mention the deceased for 2 years after the death. We all have rituals that help us deal with this new reality.’ Correspondence with Dr. Phillys R. Silverman, researcher and project director of the Harvard/MGH Child Bereavement Study
Mourning is one of the tradition ‘rites of passage’ through which families can rid themselves of their dead and return to life, there is a wide variation across cultures in how people behave during this mourning period. For example, Jewish families have seven days ‘shiva’, after the burial they stay home and friends brings food as a symbol to offer their condolences and some comfort. Irish wakes involves a lots of drinking and dancing, Greek culture has a ritual of weeping.
Mourning does not just happen inside of a person: it happens in the interaction between people.
Across culture very often mourning ritual- funeral has a very strict time-frame, using anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s analysis of rites of passage, he has portrayed funerals as having a linear progression: a beginning, a middle, and an end that is often presented as a resolution.
But researchers have found out that grief is characterized by strong emotions that come and go in no particular order. This finding is strongly supported by another anthropologist Rosaldo Rendo, he argues that grief does not necessarily have a very clear beginning and it certainly does not have a very clear end. If grief has an end, it most certainly will not correspond with the end of the funeral ritual. (Encyclopedia of death and dying- pg 22 by Glennys Howarth, Oliver Leaman)
While perhaps applicable in certain specific conditions, in a broader Western umbrellas Van Gennep’s pattern is more problematic than it is concrete. Such a linear perspective chains the bereaved to a time table and the rules established by so-called society at large, which fails on levels of individualism: emotionally, psychologically, and even practically speaking.
Making the Invisible Wound Visible
- Outward signs of mourning
The use of outward signs of mourning is a symbolic and physical way to communicate grief to the others.
Each culture has their particular custom and it dates back to ancient times.
In some cultures, close relatives are expected to styles their hair in different manner, cut of shaved off their hair, or stopped grooming it for a specific time.
In other cultures, relatives self mutilated to express their grief.
In America and Western Europe during the 19th century mourning became an established and highly structured social ritual. Rules dictated that black be the color of full mourning, and the strict etiquette outlining the manner and length of mourning. The stage of mourning is visible by the expression on the clothes, colors, jewelry etc.
Those outward signs usually work under a specific time frame, its length and variation depends on the relationship, social class and gender.
The old rituals, while a comfort and release for some, could be a burden to others. London Psychiatrist Dr. David Stafford- Clark thinks that the new attitude toward death should be considered in the context of ‘the way the whole structure of life has changed since World War II, particularly the very different attitude toward the future which has arisen. It is a much more expectant attitude – an uncertain one, but not necessarily a more negative one.’
In today’s Western Society, outward signs of mourning seems to lost its ground, even the traditional mourning color of black can be wore everyday. But it does not mean that we should go backward and longing for those symbols, because the context is not appropriate into our culture. The misuse of those symbols could become another danger of ‘categorizing’ the bereaved as ‘victim’ and it could create a negative effect from the original meaning.
- From private to public- another way to mourn
To adapt perpetual change of social context raises phenomenal like roadside memorial and recently digital mourning.
Although this marker of death site has been used for centuries, however, since the 1980s there has been a substantial growth in the number of spontaneous and roadside memorials in the U.K. (Gerri Excell, Roadside Memorials in the UK: Private Grief made Public. Unpublished MA thesis, The University of Reading, UK 2004)
This type of organic form of ritual raises the question of why do people choose to grieve outside than inside of a traditional place such as a church or a cemetery?
According to Gerri Excell’s finding, the main reason of this spontaneous way of mourning is based on the sudden, violent and often lonely death of their loved one. This ritual of memorialisation allows an outlet for this grief, outrage and protest. The scene of the death, where those bereft lives changes forever can be regained and controlled and personalized within hours of the death occurring.
To the general public it is a contemporary version of a ‘memento mori’ which is the poignant reminder of our own mortality and the fragility of life in the busy world.
The opinions on this organic form of ritual are diverse. But it is interesting to observe the use of public space and its organic character as a potential direction for a new ritual of mourning.
Digital mourning
‘One is that there are new 'public' practices of mourning which have come out of technological change and application. For example, the phenomenon of virtual cemeteries and on-line memorial sites is very interesting.’ Correspondence with Dr. Margaret Gibson
Why do people choose to find support through internet?
‘Talking to other people who have experienced a similar loss is very comforting. Some people need to do it in person-others find the internet very valuable in making people available to each other.’ Correspondence with Dr. Phyllis R. Silverman
Digital mourning seems to gains the heart of the users and well accepted by bereavement researches. However, on a phone interview with bereavement consultant and journalist Daan Westerink, ‘The digital is good as a supplement but it is not enough.’
It is certain that technological evolution is a big factor of this new movement, another factor is probably related with today’s mobile lifestyles. Some bereaved might feel very lonely and isolated because their relatives are far away during this transitional period. It could create an extra burden to the bereaved when the need of release on a verbal communication level and emotional level is not supported. Interviewer M is a typical example of this new nomadic lifestyle, after her sister died in Taiwan, she needed to go back almost immediately to the Netherlands for her study.
She says: ‘Sometimes it is very difficult for my flat mates to understand my feeling and why suddenly I cry without ‘reasonable’ reason… sometimes I just need to talk and released those pain… and then I will be fine.’
Today geographical distance could bring an extra difficulty on the bereavement process. Physical memorial place like cemetery had another value than in the past. Extensive research from psychologist and bereavement experts stressed the importance of creating a continual bond with the deceased, this focus can aid in the bereavement process. It is an important to reconcile the need for the bereaved with this nomadic lifestyle.
It is also very interesting to see the evolution of mourning, it changes from a very open and codifier character on the 19th century > close and semi codifier> today a sort of half public and half private, the need is more under the hands of the bereaved and less related with the imposed code like in the past century.
Conclusion
What is certain is that everyone grieves every loss in a different way. Grief is true as universally shared and as singular subjective occasion, a design, which speaks to grief, should maintain the same balance; part truth and part subjectivity.
The new typology of mourning should be more organic and personal. It is important to investigate personal time frames and processes as well as striving for an improved communication concerning the nature and symptoms of grief. It is certain traditional mourning ritual provided a supportive transitional period to guide the bereaved back into life, but twentieth -century social understanding of death and technological development in Western society have significantly changed.
Today a new typology of mourning is needed. It should of course respect the believe system, cultural background, identity and the choice of the bereaved and being supportive rather than a set of ‘rigid’ rules to dictated and burden them as some rituals from the past.
The Story of An Invisible Wound
Don't turn away.
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.
Rumi
The starting point and the interest on my thesis topic come from my personal experience of bereavement.
Death occured in my life for the first time when I was 8. My grand mother died with a cancer and she was 59. When I saw her corpse lying on the bed, I was not afraid and I gave her a smile as a goodbye.
Seventeen years later, I was 25. It was the panic year of S.A.R.S in Hong Kong, people were masked and afraid of the mortality and an invisible virus. Suddenly death became very close to the living in such an urban city.
That same year I lost my father and two uncles. All happened very sudden and unexpected. Although I understand death is unavoidable and it is part of the natural cycle of human beings, when it happened this did not help me to rationalize my emotions. The bereavement experience was long, difficult and painful, but today I can see the beauty within the bandaged place.
This research investigates particular ways that design can be used through the process of bereavement in the West. To be able to answer this question, investigation on the meaning of death and bereavement will be conducted under different perspectives. The data collected for this thesis is based partly from published material in the area of death and bereavement and partly from interviews with experts and interviewers.
Can contemporary design aid the process of bereavement?
Hypothesis: Objects and ritual influence bereavement, and yet have lost their place in the cultural time frames of bereavement. How design can be supportive in this transitional period of grief and giving a new meaning of mourning ritual which is more appropriate in our western society context?
The lost of a loved one can be a painful and confusing experience for the bereaved.
Bereavement touches all of us sometime during our lifetime. According to Statistics Netherlands, an average of 362 people died each day in this country, with more than 132,000 deaths in 2007.
When death occurs, we expect rightly that we will need to adjust to huge changes. In a study from Harvard University, bereaved people suffered from an increase in depression, anxiety, tension and they experienced greater problems of the cardiovascular system. Under the concern of health and well being of a person, there is an actual need to address grief.
It is certain the impact of bereavement varies from person to person and from culture to culture, it cannot be understood from a static or linear perspective.
Social understanding of death and the ways of dealing with death in the West have changed dramatically and continually, though perhaps most drastically during the last century.
The idea of death often associated with taboo and repressed, and consequently mourning becomes introvert.
Issues around death are often difficult and complex. Each death recalls all death. And each mirrors small symbolic deaths and passing; the end of relationships, of ideals, of a myriad moment lost. The suffering around death is one of our most formative human experiences.
This project aims to bring more sensibility and openness on bereavement and consequently on death in today’s western society. My approach does not have a treatment goal, but rather to attempt and support the bereaved by creating a new typology of mourning, which is considerate of our contemporary speed of life and the nomadic patterns between us.
Chapter one: Death across culture and time (+visual supports)
Death has generated the largest number of rituals, each culture has worldview includes beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life and what happens after death. Most of them are based on a belief in an afterlife or reborn, whether leave food, clothing and implement in the burial place as in the Paleolithic Age, or offer prayers at graveside, the purpose is the same: The community that nourished in life is also nourished in death. Death has a place within the community and it is a departure from the community.
It is certain that death ritual is focused on the dead, but simultaneously on life as Metcalf & Huntington suggested, ‘ the issue of death throws into relief the most important cultural values by which people live their lives and evaluate their experiences. Life becomes transparent against the background of death, and fundamental social and cultural issues are revealed.’ (1991:25)
Distancing death from the living.
Twentieth- century social understanding of death and technological development in Western society have significantly influenced the ways of dealing with death and consequently increased the prevalence of complicated mourning. Multiples factors have contributed to this development, among others, urbanization, industrialization, deritualization, increased social mobility, social reorganization, medical advances etc.
Death as taboo? Fear of death?
The acceptance of death requires a confrontation with fear, at base, fear of death is a very common emotional response to death.
Theorists like Ernest Becker believes that the fear of death is a major motivator of all behavior. When the fear of death is handled properly, it can be a positive force which motivates individuals into phenomenal achievements with the goal that those achievements would transcend their physical mortality. (1973- Becker, E. The denial of death. New York: Free Press.) However, this same fear can become destructive and could even result in physical and mental problems when it is not properly handled.
The complexity of this construct suggests that death anxiety is likely to manifest itself in various ways. One of the most common ways in which we display is through avoidance (e.g., Kastenbaum, 1999).
For London based artist Inventory this avoidance in Western society is covered by material consumption and mediated reality. It distances us from actual responses, feelings and even lived interactions.
“Our material world, the moraine of our existence, provokes nothing more than the profoundest disquiet. Supposing we were to make inventory of everything we owned, all our possessions. What could this accumulated data say to us? – Nothing more than the extreme poverty of modern life. For all our constructions, our technologies, our material cultures attempt to mask our corporeal existence- our true materiality. Our flesh, our bones, our laughter and screams are our material condition, and no intellectual formulation, no technological construction or scientific data will bury this understanding indefinitely.’
But on the other hand, some societies appear to be more accepting of death. The Truskese of Micronesia are an example of a death-affirming society where people start preparing for death at age 40. This acceptance ought to manifest itself in lower death anxiety levels.
Displacement of death
For many thousand of years, death, funerary and mourning rites were not very different in the West then other part of the world.
The old rites still persist in large areas of the West, but according to French historian Phillippe Aries our cultural views of death have changed from a position that death was omnipresent and its inevitability accepted, to a perspective he titles ‘forbidden death’ where death is seen as something almost shameful and not to be discussed.
This change happened quickly between 1930 and 1950, especially in the more technologically developed and urban areas. “One no longer died at home in the bosom of one’s family, but in the hospital alone.’ (Aries p.87) The essence of this ‘new’ death is invisibility, a desire for death to retreat from the family and to be confined to hospitals and increasingly, to the hospices. California Sociologist Robert Fulton estimates that the average American family can go for 20 years without encountering death.
This invisibility influences strongly on Western’s worldview towards death, according to British social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer (1905-85) on his article ‘the pornography of death’. His observation is based on the difference between cultural attitudes toward death in the Victorian era and in twentieth century. He points out that death is having the same position in modern life then sex was treated in the nineteenth century. In our society death is avoided and hidden like sex in the past. In Victorian period death was discussed openly and freely as sex is today.
This came as always after some struggle, and a century later had lost ground to conversations of new taboos.
This conscious or unconscious avoidance affects our way of grieving and influence the way how we mourn in large areas of the West.
If we are not expressing our grief, what might happen to it?
Psychology Professor Harry W. Martin of Texas Southwestern Medical School points out the danger of the decline in expression of grief. ‘slick, smooth operation of easing the corpse out, but saying no to
weeping and wailing and expressing grief and loneliness. What effect does this have on us psychologically? It may means that we have to mourn covertly, by subterfuge – perhaps in various degrees of depression, perhaps in mad flights of activity, perhaps in booze.’
Chapter two:But what is grief? Mourning and Bereavement?
‘Grief is a state of mind; bereavement a condition. Both are mediated by mourning, a set of acts and gestures through which survivors express grief and pass through stages of bereavement.’ (pg.29, J. Winter, Sites of memory Sites of mourning, Cambridge University press, 1995)
A bereaved may be affected on two levels - internal: psychological and spiritual
- external: physical, behavioral and social
In this chapter I will explore the difference between grief, mourning. An overview will be given on the concept on grief in the West and the development of mourning across time and cultures through visual support.
Learning from their wounds
‘Grief is like a ripple, it becomes bigger than bigger, you never know when it will stop… and maybe it will never stop.’ from interviewer M.
Findings from my one to one conversations with bereaved in Belgium and in The Netherlands, approximately six months after the death, as well as six years and ten years later.
Conversation with respondent included many open-ended questions. This approach allows them to share their stories and experiences with me.
Each story is unique and each person grieves in a very different way.
Some people suffer hardly then gradually accept the lost and moving on to new structure of life.
Some people have more difficulty to adapt, unable to moving on and feeling loneliness and despair for years after.
Some people prefer avoids the pain and erased the dead from their memory.
The length of their mourning period varies, sometimes it takes few months. Sometimes it takes more than two years. Sometimes it is still processing. It shows there is no standard time-frame which can be applied for every person. It is interesting to notice from the internet, books etc, that the idea of curing, coping, get over it etc, these terms are frequently used in association with grief.
‘In many Western cultures today, the experience of grief is spoken of as something to overcome, get over, and resolve so that one can move on and be finished with it. With that end in mind, the medical model of care-giving prescribes ‘treating’ the bereaved ‘patient’ as quickly as possible to promote a swift return to the previous level of functioning.’ (pg. 24-Peggy P. Whiting, Laura S. Wheat, and Loretta J. Bradley)
According to Dr. Phyllis R. Silverman, when grief is viewed as a life-cycle transition it is easier to see that grief is more than the expression of extreme feelings. It involves multiples lost - lost of the person, lost of self in the relationship and a way of life is lost as well. It is a time of loss and change in the bereaved’s life.
Another finding from her research of the Child Bereavement Study is that grief does not end at a given time. (Silverman and Nickman, 1996; Silverman 2000) The bereaved and the children often feel isolated, as if something wrong with them, when their experience does not coincide with the advice they are given to ‘seek closure’, ‘to’ put the past behind them, or to ‘let their grief go’.
Although all my interviewers have their unique way to go through grief, but most of them told me that grief never really goes away, but lessens over time. “This invisible wound is like a physical wound, it needs its own time to heal but the scar could never disappeared.” says interviewer M.
Important indicators for any efforts at aiding in bereavement, are to investigate personal time frames and processes as well as striving for an improved communication concerning the nature and symptoms of grief, in order to grease the transition to a more transparent pattern.
What is mourning? And how does ritual aid in the grieving process?
‘I know of almost no culture where death is easily taken in stride by the mourners. In the long run, yes people deal… and sometimes they find ways of avoiding the new reality as for example in the aboriginals of Australia who are forbidden to mention the deceased for 2 years after the death. We all have rituals that help us deal with this new reality.’ Correspondence with Dr. Phillys R. Silverman, researcher and project director of the Harvard/MGH Child Bereavement Study
Mourning is one of the tradition ‘rites of passage’ through which families can rid themselves of their dead and return to life, there is a wide variation across cultures in how people behave during this mourning period. For example, Jewish families have seven days ‘shiva’, after the burial they stay home and friends brings food as a symbol to offer their condolences and some comfort. Irish wakes involves a lots of drinking and dancing, Greek culture has a ritual of weeping.
Mourning does not just happen inside of a person: it happens in the interaction between people.
Across culture very often mourning ritual- funeral has a very strict time-frame, using anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s analysis of rites of passage, he has portrayed funerals as having a linear progression: a beginning, a middle, and an end that is often presented as a resolution.
But researchers have found out that grief is characterized by strong emotions that come and go in no particular order. This finding is strongly supported by another anthropologist Rosaldo Rendo, he argues that grief does not necessarily have a very clear beginning and it certainly does not have a very clear end. If grief has an end, it most certainly will not correspond with the end of the funeral ritual. (Encyclopedia of death and dying- pg 22 by Glennys Howarth, Oliver Leaman)
While perhaps applicable in certain specific conditions, in a broader Western umbrellas Van Gennep’s pattern is more problematic than it is concrete. Such a linear perspective chains the bereaved to a time table and the rules established by so-called society at large, which fails on levels of individualism: emotionally, psychologically, and even practically speaking.
Making the Invisible Wound Visible
- Outward signs of mourning
The use of outward signs of mourning is a symbolic and physical way to communicate grief to the others.
Each culture has their particular custom and it dates back to ancient times.
In some cultures, close relatives are expected to styles their hair in different manner, cut of shaved off their hair, or stopped grooming it for a specific time.
In other cultures, relatives self mutilated to express their grief.
In America and Western Europe during the 19th century mourning became an established and highly structured social ritual. Rules dictated that black be the color of full mourning, and the strict etiquette outlining the manner and length of mourning. The stage of mourning is visible by the expression on the clothes, colors, jewelry etc.
Those outward signs usually work under a specific time frame, its length and variation depends on the relationship, social class and gender.
The old rituals, while a comfort and release for some, could be a burden to others. London Psychiatrist Dr. David Stafford- Clark thinks that the new attitude toward death should be considered in the context of ‘the way the whole structure of life has changed since World War II, particularly the very different attitude toward the future which has arisen. It is a much more expectant attitude – an uncertain one, but not necessarily a more negative one.’
In today’s Western Society, outward signs of mourning seems to lost its ground, even the traditional mourning color of black can be wore everyday. But it does not mean that we should go backward and longing for those symbols, because the context is not appropriate into our culture. The misuse of those symbols could become another danger of ‘categorizing’ the bereaved as ‘victim’ and it could create a negative effect from the original meaning.
- From private to public- another way to mourn
To adapt perpetual change of social context raises phenomenal like roadside memorial and recently digital mourning.
Although this marker of death site has been used for centuries, however, since the 1980s there has been a substantial growth in the number of spontaneous and roadside memorials in the U.K. (Gerri Excell, Roadside Memorials in the UK: Private Grief made Public. Unpublished MA thesis, The University of Reading, UK 2004)
This type of organic form of ritual raises the question of why do people choose to grieve outside than inside of a traditional place such as a church or a cemetery?
According to Gerri Excell’s finding, the main reason of this spontaneous way of mourning is based on the sudden, violent and often lonely death of their loved one. This ritual of memorialisation allows an outlet for this grief, outrage and protest. The scene of the death, where those bereft lives changes forever can be regained and controlled and personalized within hours of the death occurring.
To the general public it is a contemporary version of a ‘memento mori’ which is the poignant reminder of our own mortality and the fragility of life in the busy world.
The opinions on this organic form of ritual are diverse. But it is interesting to observe the use of public space and its organic character as a potential direction for a new ritual of mourning.
Digital mourning
‘One is that there are new 'public' practices of mourning which have come out of technological change and application. For example, the phenomenon of virtual cemeteries and on-line memorial sites is very interesting.’ Correspondence with Dr. Margaret Gibson
Why do people choose to find support through internet?
‘Talking to other people who have experienced a similar loss is very comforting. Some people need to do it in person-others find the internet very valuable in making people available to each other.’ Correspondence with Dr. Phyllis R. Silverman
Digital mourning seems to gains the heart of the users and well accepted by bereavement researches. However, on a phone interview with bereavement consultant and journalist Daan Westerink, ‘The digital is good as a supplement but it is not enough.’
It is certain that technological evolution is a big factor of this new movement, another factor is probably related with today’s mobile lifestyles. Some bereaved might feel very lonely and isolated because their relatives are far away during this transitional period. It could create an extra burden to the bereaved when the need of release on a verbal communication level and emotional level is not supported. Interviewer M is a typical example of this new nomadic lifestyle, after her sister died in Taiwan, she needed to go back almost immediately to the Netherlands for her study.
She says: ‘Sometimes it is very difficult for my flat mates to understand my feeling and why suddenly I cry without ‘reasonable’ reason… sometimes I just need to talk and released those pain… and then I will be fine.’
Today geographical distance could bring an extra difficulty on the bereavement process. Physical memorial place like cemetery had another value than in the past. Extensive research from psychologist and bereavement experts stressed the importance of creating a continual bond with the deceased, this focus can aid in the bereavement process. It is an important to reconcile the need for the bereaved with this nomadic lifestyle.
It is also very interesting to see the evolution of mourning, it changes from a very open and codifier character on the 19th century > close and semi codifier> today a sort of half public and half private, the need is more under the hands of the bereaved and less related with the imposed code like in the past century.
Conclusion
What is certain is that everyone grieves every loss in a different way. Grief is true as universally shared and as singular subjective occasion, a design, which speaks to grief, should maintain the same balance; part truth and part subjectivity.
The new typology of mourning should be more organic and personal. It is important to investigate personal time frames and processes as well as striving for an improved communication concerning the nature and symptoms of grief. It is certain traditional mourning ritual provided a supportive transitional period to guide the bereaved back into life, but twentieth -century social understanding of death and technological development in Western society have significantly changed.
Today a new typology of mourning is needed. It should of course respect the believe system, cultural background, identity and the choice of the bereaved and being supportive rather than a set of ‘rigid’ rules to dictated and burden them as some rituals from the past.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Irreversible Cessation Magazine - introduction
As no one knows about death, we create an imaginary world of consumption. Material culture provides us a vision of immortality in which we can free ourselves from the mortality of human flesh. It distances us from our true materiality, feelings and even lived interactions.
We love and fear to lose.
Social understanding of death and the ways of dealing with death have changed dramatically and continually, through perhaps most drastically during the last century.
The idea of death often becomes a taboo and repressed, and consequently mourning becomes a private affair.
Bereavement touches all of us sometime during our lifetime. Although intellectually and rationally we acknowledge death as a natural part of life, when it happens on a personal level, it is difficult for us to accept. Why does all pragmatism and prerequisite knowledge fail to influence our emotional response when the death becomes reality?
We love and fear to lose.
Social understanding of death and the ways of dealing with death have changed dramatically and continually, through perhaps most drastically during the last century.
The idea of death often becomes a taboo and repressed, and consequently mourning becomes a private affair.
Bereavement touches all of us sometime during our lifetime. Although intellectually and rationally we acknowledge death as a natural part of life, when it happens on a personal level, it is difficult for us to accept. Why does all pragmatism and prerequisite knowledge fail to influence our emotional response when the death becomes reality?
Irreversible Cessation Magazine - contents
Article 1-
What is death? Death as unknown, as taboo. Who knows what death is, but this is why we talk about it. In this chapter I will offer a literature review to explain the connection between the fear of death and consumption (the concept of failure) in modern society.
Article 2-
Death across culture and time. Rituals have varied extensively with time and space, and have often varied directly with religious perception. This chapter will be approached from a variety of interpretations, similarities and differences.
Article 3-
When the living have no choice?
Mourning is one of the tradition ‘rites of passage’ through which families can ride themselves of their dead and return to life. Mourning will be approached in the following context.
- Digital and physical
- Past and present
- Dead and life
- Inside and outside
Article4-
Death is not dead –
Artists love death and death loves art, but why doesn’t designer love death?
examples of death in art, design and music etc.
Article 5-
Can design aid in overcoming bereavement?
Keyword- transition
Most of us are in fortunate enough positions to believe that we hold some amount of control over events that take place in our lives. However, when a death occurs and takes away someone we love, we are expected to adjust to huge changes that we didn't ask for and certainly don't want. We are left feeling helpless and out of control. People who normally cope well with all types of crises can be left dazed and damaged.
My motivation for this project is my interest on the repressed emotion of the bereaved.
How a healthy mourning can provides courageous awarness and acceptance of death?
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