Hereafter - The Definition of New Grief
What is the transformation of the western communication of grief, dubbed the 'New Grief'? To what extent can its diverse changes be represented and deciphered through specially assembled grief styles?
The re-invention of death in the 21st century, referred to as 'The New Death,' does not explicitly consider what makes death human: our grief. For this reason, the present trend study "Hereafter" defines the 'New Grief'. It aims to promote an empathic exchange with grieving people and open up novel research perspectives.
The focus of the study is on the privatized world of mourning. Due to the loss of tradition and individualism, a growing desire has developed for reimagined rituals of death and grief that are accessible to a diverse and secularized society with a high need for expression. As a result of ethnographic research, this thesis analyzes and categorizes changing expressions of grief and decodes the New Grief through 'grief styles,' which are collections of distinctive grief expressions of a material and immaterial nature, each of which has a unifying logic that lies at its core.
Identified grief styles are transferred into altar designs expressing the otherness of the New Grief and can be viewed as part of an exhibition.
