Rituals of Grief

Grief is an invisible and hidden void in society. How and where do people grieve? Do

people feel genuinely connected with custom practices of mourning in their different cultures?

This project recognises the importance of facilitating space to connect, process, and express grief.

Rituals of Grief is online documentation looking at a creative process with the eyes of a Death Doula and Performance Artist. This project investigates performing acts of mourning as a container to process experiences around loss and grief drawing on somatic movement methodologies, ritualistic practices and live art.

Ritual 1

Preparing the Fire

Performance for camera

My Bedroom, London, UK

October 2022

Ritual 2

Disintegrate

Performance for camera

hArtslane Project Space Residency

London,UK, January 2023

Working with three main images as part of a video triptych: A body wrapped up in cling film, a rectangle box I recieved from the

crematorium when picking up my mother's ashes, and her ashes.

I aimed for juxtaposing shapes and forms that explore different states of tension such as contraction and release.

Ritual3

Invisible Grief

Performance for camera
Colchester Art Centre
Colchester,UK

February 2023

Ritual 4

"Green Night"

Performance for camera

L'Estartit,Spain

July 2023

In Silesia, Poland there is a practice that the last night that you have a guest staying at your house you play tricks on them. My mum loved this tradition and always had much fun drawing beards on the faces of guests while they are sleeping or hiding shoes in the night, taping the door in gaffa tape and so on. It was always something different when you woke up in the morning. The day we spread my mum's ashes in the sea, the wind in the night was howling, the windows of our home flew opened and a toilet paper spiral dance arouse around the house.

These images were a sight specific responds self documented in collaboration with my daughter Mia at the house in LeÉstratit we were staying our last night. I felt my mum cry.