Dealing with Death

Death is a subject that needs to be dealt with carefully as it is one of the last remaining taboos in western society and unfortunately because of this is an area left alone by designers. I looked into the huge subject area of death to design for and after research decided to concentrate on the act of mourning. In our western society the mourner is separated from their deceased loved ones far too soon. Immediately after death the body is dealt with by death professionals, by this I mean doctors, mortitioners and funeral organisations, and then either buried of cremated. This seperation can cause the mourner to become disconnected with the death and although this does not hinder grieving too much, it does hinder the mourner fully handling and understanding their loss.

My design attempts to tackle this problem. I have designed an urn that aids the mourner by controlling the dispersion of their loved ones ashes. There is one larger urn that all the ashes are originally put in and this, when the mourner wishes, passes an equal amount of the ashes into the smaller urn that is carried by the mourner and dispersed from. Because a set amount of ashes can be released at any one time the mourner can scatter their loved ones ashes over various sites that have personal value. This prevents the mourner scattering the ashes immediately and feeling like they've lost their loved ones forever but creates a system to aid the mourning. Equally, because the design itself encourages the controlled scattering of ashes the mourner feels compelled to release the ashes rather than keep them in an urn on the mantle piece and never to fully recover from their loss.