Mourning Machine. (2022-present)
A participatory ritual for grieving in community.
A joyful space to restore the soul.
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Mourning Machine is an ongoing research & performance project about the scientific, personal, political, aesthetic, and ritual aspects of grieving. It is built by a creative community which gathered to study and perform alternatives to the highly commercialized and capitalistic approaches to death, dying, and grieving that we receive in contemporary culture(s), by combining live performance, science, and ancient technologies (rituals of grief).
DISCIPLINES REPRESENTED:
-
Social Psychology, Arts Activism, Public Relations, Jewish Studies, Clown, Theater, Visual Art, Music, Dance, Library Studies, etc.
OUTPUTS:
-
An immersive ritual space for grieving in community, which serves as the setting for:
-
A psychological research study about grieving in community.
CONVENED AND ORGANIZED BY: JESS APPLEBAUM, MICA BAUM-TUCCILLO, NIC BENACERRAF, BEA MARTINO
CURRENT COLLABORATORS: MOLLIE ANDRON, ELVIS BAKAITIS, CHOCO GARCIA-RIVERA, DOROTHEA GLORIA, CHIE MORITA, AUSTIN PURNELL, XINAN HELEN RAN, RICHARD SAUDEK, JACQUES SERVIN
EMERITUS COLLABORATORS: MARA EINSTEIN, VANESSA OGBUEHI, JILLIAN WALKER
CONTRIBUTORS: KATE FRY, SAM KASETA
MACHINES IN DEVELOPMENT:
-
Coffin Karaoke – a Filipino Catholic tradition of singing next to the coffin, known as Karaoke Lamay
-
Clowns & Coffins – a rehearsal for walking into a funeral... as a clown
-
Name Tag Machine – a way to identify yourself as the "Mourner of..."
-
“Sitting-With” Machine – a one-on-one experience of “saying hello again” to a lost loved one, guided by a trained psychotherapist
-
Altar Machine – a cumulative, sculptural shrine
-
Humming Machine – guided experience of group humming for one minute at a time
-
Conversation Machine – a place to hang out, debrief about the other machines, and discuss personal and cultural fears/wishes around our own death
-
Sanctuary Machine – a place to be alone
-
Sound Machine – a sound installation collaging sounds of funeral rites from around the world
-
Procession Machine – a procession through the streets, coffin in hand, inspired by New Orleans second-lines
-
Toast Machine – an endless round of saying toasts around the coffin
Join our Grieving Community!
We're designing this project in modular ways to invite the participation of others. Know people or organizations who are working on grief and mourning as a collective practice? Let us know!