Six Feet Under: Design + Death
Posted Wed 3rd Apr 2024 | katie.evans@ohm.org.au
Open House Melbourne will shine a light on the architecture, places, issues and practices associated with death and end of life in its upcoming program Six Feet Under: Design + Death. As part of Melbourne Design Week 2024, the two-day program addresses the importance of good design at the end of life.
Open House Melbourne Executive Director and Chief Curator Dr Tania Davidge reflects that death is something we are desperate to avoid and hesitant to talk about. ‘Six Feet Under: Design + Death explores how we respond to our mortality through the lens of design. The program looks at the changing role of cemeteries in our city and the role design plays in grieving and commemoration. It will unpack cultural practices of grieving and examine the spaces that allow us to die with dignity. We invite audiences to discover how the spaces we associate with death and dying are, surprisingly, not so much about death but instead more about life, community and the way we live.
Open House Melbourne is working with Major Program Partner Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (SMCT), to present a full-day program at Bunurong Memorial Park.
The leading panel of Time Immemorial explores practices of memorialisation, bringing to light the intricacies of remembrance and how the upcoming miscarriage memorial acts as a touchstone for a community that has traditionally had to internalise their grief.
Day two of the program, the Design + Death Symposium will be held at the NGV’s Clemenger Auditorium on Sunday 2 June.
Hamish Coates, landscape architect and Principal Designer at Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) will speak as part of the first panel conversation Future Undertakings: Design which asks the question, ‘As our city continues to grow, access to quality public space has never been more important, how might the cemetery play a broader role as our suburbs and neighbourhoods increase in density?’
Dr Hannah Gould, a member of the University of Melbourne’s DeathTech Research Team, will moderate the second panel conversation Diversity + Dying: Cultural Practices of Mourning. Dr Gould says, ‘Death is universal but our cultural responses to dying and grief are varied. We not only live, but also die, in a multicultural, multifaith society, and this diversity is reflected in our different spaces of memorialisation and ceremony.’
The final conversation, Towards the Light: Design at the End of Life examines design at the end of life. Dr Mark Boughey, Head of Palliative Care at St Vincents Hospital and Dr Rebecca McLaughlan, a Senior Lecturer in Professional Practice and Architectural Design at the University of Sydney will reflect on the importance of design in palliative care spaces, how we can live a good life right up until the end and explore what it means to die with dignity.
During the Design + Death Symposium, participants will also be invited to contribute to research questions posed by Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust and Melbourne University’s DeathTech Research Team and further consider how they may like to be commemorated and buried, when that inevitable time comes.
Time Immemorial at Bunurong Memorial Park
Saturday 1 June
9.45am-4pm
General admission: $120 + booking fee
Concessions/Members: $95 + booking fee
Design + Death Symposium
Sunday 2 June
11am-3.30pm
Clemenger Auditorium, NGV
General admission: $45 + booking fee
Concession/Members: $35 + booking fee
Tickets available for purchase from mid April via Open House Melbourne
Six Feet Under: Design + Death is presented by Open House Melbourne, supported by Major Program Partner Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, Program Partners DeathTech Research Team and the School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, and Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust.
This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2024, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.
Image: Genesis Lake, Bunurong Memorial Park. Jonathan Lang for Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust.
