/ Communication at end of life.
Why not talk about it? Visit dyingseries.ca
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/ Collaborators: Dr. Kate Sellen, Karen Oikonen, Maria Chueng of Taboo Health
/ Community Partner: DesignTO / Affiliated Websites: www.dyingseries.ca, www.taboohealthexhibitions.com |
/ Overview
Key Words: Death, dying, design, art, festival
Dying. is an event series running in conjunction with DesignTO, Canada’s largest design festival. The Dying. festival comprises three parts: Dying.dialogues, Dying.exhibits and an outdoor participatory installation. Each component invites participants to share and reflect on design practice as it relates to end of life. Dying. offers an opportunity to creatively engage in conversation about death, dying, and grief through the lens of art and design. |
Background: In the Dying. series, dying and death is explored by researchers, artists, designers, and medical practitioners in collaboration with people from the public and the wider community. Past events included in Dying. have included art-making workshops, public art shows, public lectures, participatory art installations, participatory design workshops, and evidence-based game play. Our goal is to enable and encourage dialogues between social science and humanities researchers, the public and the larger community on issues associated with dying and death. Through these events, researchers in a variety of fields and disciplines have had the opportunity to share their expertise and learn from colleagues, while simultaneously engaging in knowledge mobilization with the public.
Need: Traditionally, death has been imagined as a moment of transition. In North America during the twentieth century, the place of death shifted from the home to the hospital, medicine came to dominate the discourse about death and dying, and death itself came to be conceived as a problem to be controlled or prevented. This has resulted in the widespread Western denial of death as a part of life, meaning often people are unprepared to face death when it occurs. Death denial is overcome by bringing death out of the closet; hence, the rise in recent years of 'death cafes,' 'hospice hikes,' 'death festivals,' 'death exhibits', 'death with dignity events,' and a host of other such initiatives. |
/ Engagement
Since its inaugural year in 2018, the Dying. series has attracted over 5000 attendees, 26 speakers, including opening and keynote speakers Ivor Williams (Helix Centre), Nikki Salkeld and Ashley Rudolph (MOTH, Falmouth University), Dr. Naheed Dosani (Inner City Health Associates) and 29 exhibiting artists and designers.
/ Components
Dying.dialogues:
Dying.dialogues, led by the Health Design Studio at OCAD University, is a mini-symposium on design and death, dying, and grief that invites participants to share and reflect on design practice as it relates to death and dying. A variety of work is shared in this event whether these be speculative, exploratory works, community engagements, or interventions for specific groups or circumstances. The symposium engages inter-disciplinary participants - designers, artists, scholars, health care practitioners and the wider public to come together to explore wide-ranging topics on end of life. These dialogues are an opportunity to engage with diverse perspectives and participate in open conversations about death, dying, grief, and design. |
Outdoor Participatory Installation:
Each year the Dying. series develops a public outdoor participatory installation, see below for more information on past installations. Dying threads (2020):
Dying.threads invited the public to reflect on death and dying using natural materials, thread, and seeds. The installation asks participants to consider three choices for their end of life (1) How do you want to be remembered after you die? (2) Where do you want to be when you die? (3) Who do you want to be with you when you die?. Dying.threads generated a web of responses that investigate the varied inter-connected values, perspectives and experiences surrounding death and dying. Before I Die... (2019):
The 'Before I Die' project reimagines the ways the walls of our cities can help us grapple with death and meaning as a community today. Candy Chang, artist and urban planner, created the first ‘Before I Die’ wall on an abandoned house in New Orleans after the death of someone she loved. A ‘Before I Die’ wall was mounted outside OCAD University as part of Dying. series in January 2019. |
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