Re.Designing Death - Bringing death to the forefront of innovation

We are a community of the habitually curious, aiming for nothing less than real societal change – to build and nurture new opportunities for innovation around death and dying.




Once death was everywhere, accepted as a normal part of life. Now, there are few topics we shun as stubbornly as that of our own mortality. Suspended in a state of stifling denial, we tell ourselves: “Me? No. Not for a long time yet. I’ll deal with that later.” Until “later” turns into “too late.”

The world of death and dying is ripe with many out-dated, inhumane practices, services, and approaches. They stem, we believe, from the very taboo shrouding the subject. Our thinking may be 21st century, but our burial rites are still positively archaic. But what if we once again embraced death as a part of life? What if we didn’t shy away from the conversation? We may never be able to do away with death itself, but why don’t we try to make the experience around it much better?

Our Manifesto
WHO WE ARE

People


We are the Re.Designing Death movement. We believe that our mortality matters.

We are an informal group of people united not by an employer but by a shared vision: to create actual societal change on the subject of death. We will never be able to make death a good thing, but we may be able to make it less bad by instigating projects that challenge the taboo, while connecting and celebrating change makers. That’s no easy feat, for sure. But we’re confident we can make it happen – through the shared human experience of conducting our projects, and with the help of the multitude of voices, perspectives and curious minds that make up our community.

Our community continues to grow with each project that we do. We have accumulated advocates, allies and activists all across Europe.
Here are the founding members that helped create the movement:


team
Virginie Gailing
@VirginieGailing

A designer with more than 15 years experience in creating meaningful and visionary innovation, Virginie is one of the initiators of the Re.Designing Death movement.

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Lea Gscheidel
@FrauLea

The daughter of an undertaker and a midwife, Lea spent 15 years working in Germany’s theatre scene before finally returning back to her roots. In her work as a mortician, she challenges the traditions and business practices surrounding death.

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Inga Treitler
anthropologyimagination.com

Cultural anthropologist Inga’s driving interest is to develop ways for people to be integrated in inclusive and diverse ways of living. She founded Anthropology Imagination LLC in 2010 to carry out consulting work for businesses, non-profits, and government clients.

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Nik Pollinger
@digitalanthro

Nik helps organisations ground what they make, do, and say in evidence about peoples' behaviour and the forces that shape it. A graduate of the Digital Anthropology program at University College London, he is particularly interested in behaviour around technology.

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Dotti Töllner
@DottiToellner
Doerte ‘Dotti’ Toellner is the cofounder and previous managing director of Point-Blank International. In nearly two decades as a qualitative researcher, design thinker, and change agent she has founded two companies and travelled all over the world on the behalf of ‘her’ brands.
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Cori Moore
@coribeth_
A psychologist by training who focussed her research on the topic of suicide and self-harm, Cori was one of the first members of Re.Designing Death and continues to manage the community. She also leads the course "How To Face Death" at The School of Life in Berlin.
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Cat Macaulay
@operanomad‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
Head of User Research and Engagement at the Scottish Government. Ethnogapher, out opera fan. Views by-product of nurture, socio-cultural context etc. Who knows?
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Lydia Broussard
lydiambroussard.com
Lydia Broussard is a qualitative researcher specializing in ethnography, design thinking and strategy whose background is in cognitive science and media studies. She is all about creative research and reporting approaches, asking questions and fostering social change.
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Sophie Buergin
@sophiebuergin
Sophie is a Experience Designer with specialization in Design Ethnography. Passionate about design methods with experience in sensitive research and business modelling, Sophie aims to challenge people to ask the question that will lead them towards disruptive change.
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Joyce Fu
@JoyceFu2
Combining design ethnography approaches with her vast knowledge, Joyce is dedicated to researching the future and identifying new ways to understand people's daily lives. She is a graduate of the East China University of Science and Technology and the University of Dundee.
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Craig Owens
As a Design Ethnographer, Craig is all about building relationships: with clients, users, and participants. His training in jewellery design taught him the value of tactile thinking; he finds that visualising and modelling ideas creates an excellent bridge between theory and practice.
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Luisa Zielinski
Luisa Zielinski is a Berlin-based writer, editor, and translator whose work spans communications strategy and literature. She’d like to talk to you about morbid modernists and about how you would’ve died in the 19th century.
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