Designer deaths: From ocean paddles to sneakily scattered ashes, we’re doing things differently

Where would you like to have your ashes scattered? The beach? The bush?Odds are, few of us imagine ourselves stuck in a box on a shelf.

But Melbourne University associate professor Bjorn Nansen, who specialises in death and rituals and heads the evocatively named DeathTech team, says that outcome is often the reality – because people are paralysed by choice.

Examining the design around death: Bjorn Nansen, University of Melbourne associate professor, specialist in digital death commemoration, and Tania Davlidge, executive director of Open House Melbourne and curator of Beyond the Grave.Credit: Jason South

“If you haven’t got ritual to fall back on, although it opens up possibilities with ... novelty and personalisation, sometimes people can be stuck. They put [the ashes] in a corner or on a shelf, and they sit there for a long time, with uncertainty or indecision about what to do with them.”

One of his colleagues points out there are millions of examples of people “stuck in a box”.

Nansen is hosting a session at the Shrine of Remembrance as part of the two-day symposium Beyond the Grave: Death + Design, which is part of Melbourne Design Week in May.

“In some sectors of society, there’s a real demand for change and personalisation, particularly from more secular sections of society; people want to take control.” Nansen says.

“It’s a generational thing as well as a secular thing,” he adds, while acknowledging there are also religious and cultural groups that “stick to tradition and really value that”.

“Ritual is really important, and I think some of it’s about people wanting to acknowledge ritual and tradition but also to customise their own, to create meaning that’s important for them, their values and their loved ones.”

For diehard sports fans, for example, the ideal resting place might be the MCG or the SCG, or maybe their team’s original home ground. Barcelona Football Club is building what it calls a columbarium – effectively a mausoleum where superfans can have their ashes stored – under its new stadium.

Paddle-outs are a relatively new ritual to recognise the loss of a loved surfer.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Nansen and his team regularly hear about people secretly scattering ashes in significant places. He does not recommend this (it’s illegal in many public places in Australia without a permit), but he understands the intention.

“People are wanting to connect to the life of the person, to their community or their interests.”

Funerals are no longer necessarily held at a church or funeral home but at community centres, pubs and clubs, at home or the beach – and new rituals are being created.

“The paddle-out is a really interesting one … when any surfer dies now, a paddle-out is almost an expected ritual,” Nansen says.

New technologies such as digital mapping for scattered ashes and “virtualising that memorial” are helpful, he says, allowing people to mark online where a loved one’s ashes are.

More extreme tech ideas include digital avatars of the dead person. Nansen says several startups are pursuing that idea, clearly sensing there’s money to be made. Rafts of products also allow people to commemorate loved ones in novel ways, he says, with jewellery, tattooing and cremation stones that turn ashes into stone.

According to Open House Melbourne executive director and chief curator Tania Davidge, who devised Beyond the Grave, death is a difficult topic to discuss when people are in the throes of grief.

“While we’re really nervous talking about these big issues in society, when you put people in a space where they can discuss them and consider them, people are so engaged. It’s quite powerful,” she says.

Tours of cemeteries have become quite popular, says Davidge, and Brighton and St Kilda feature on the Open House program. There was a symposium at Design Week last year on palliative care and another on the future of the cemetery.

Davidge says we tend to do many things automatically while grieving. “This is about going, ‘Does the world need to be this way? What does sustainable burial mean? Why have I not thought about that as an option? How do I want to be cared for at the end of my life? What are the spaces I would like to care for my loved ones?’

“Design is not going to solve anything – we are all going to die – but considerate design in all its forms can help to make those final stages more pleasant and also make it easier for your family to care for you.”

Melbourne Design Week runs May 15-25.

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