Traversing Urban Deathscapes

Read the Zine

In what ways do inequities of urban spatial justice intersect with funerary customs in densely populated cities?

In urban contexts around the globe, space is a contested and valuable resource; how can we make space for the dead when the living are already struggling for housing justice and mobility?

Novel ways of treating the dead have emerged in major cities, which both reflect inequalities inherent in the world of the living and bring into question what becomes of long established death rituals in densely populated areas.

Distilling insights from this research inquiry, I wrote and designed “The Seance Sessions” – a fictional interview zine about spatial justice in urban deathscapes^*.

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Image: CNN.com

*Deathscapes are “defined as ‘the material expression in the landscape of practices relating to death’ – can encompass durable markings of the landscape (e.g. cemeteries) as well as more ephemeral manifestations and artefacts such as the scattering of ashes. Importantly, deathscapes are not only spaces associated with the dead and dying, but also are constituted by the meanings which are attributed to such spaces by the living.” (Alistair Hunter, 2015)