Eavesdrop On Experts

“One of the things I’m continually surprised about is just how creative and resilient people can be around death, dying and memorialisation,” says Dr Hannah Gould, ARC Research Fellow at the DeathTech Research Team, based at The University of Melbourne. “I think there’s a kind of belief that death is very taboo... but actually, we continually encounter a great degree of creativity in how people want to memorialise the dead, how people want to be remembered themselves and how they feel about the future of our cemeteries and cemetery spaces. Dr Gould’s work shows that two-thirds of Australians are open to new and perhaps innovative uses for cemetery spaces including walking tours, botanical gardens, fitness classes – or even public events like theatre or festivals. “Our word for cemetery comes from the Greek for ‘a sleeping place’,” says Dr Gould. “So the dead are at peace, for example. But now, they’re also popping up with Facebook notifications or you might even have an AI bot that Tweets out for you after yo