Design for Open Enquiry: Fine Dying at K11 Gallery

Sept 2015

As an action research lab, we aim to create long-term social change. At ‘The Secret Life of Design’ exhibition at K11 Art Gallery, we have showcased the latest development of our Fine Dying Study: the Fine Dying Book, the Open Death Diamond Pods and the 1st Death Jewellery Collection as a new way of opening up possibilities for our future dying matters. All the findings of our Fine Dying Study (Sept – Dec 2013) were collected and put together into the death book, Fine Dying: Let’s co-design our dying issues (2015), ISBN: 978-988-13961-43, funded by Hong Kong Hospice and Palliative Care Foundation (HKHPCF).  

The “Death Jewellery Collection” shares the design objects that carry out these intergenerational stories inspiring people to think about their own dying matters. The collection is designed by the British designer Pascal Anson based on the real life stories collected by death activist William Outcast. It was the extension of the Open Diamond Project is transforming peoples’ stories of living and dying into objects for legacy and the process is bringing generations together.

At the exhibition we have also set up several Diamond Pods designed by Milk Design and invited the visitors to experience the dialogue on death through designing Death Jewellery of their own. “What if you became a piece of diamond after you died and in what form do you want to come back to life?” this is the question we raised when we created the ‘Diamond Pod’. It is a conversation space we aim to set up for an equal dialogue between a designer and two users of the death jewellery. We called the supplier (those who would like to become a piece of diamond using their body ashes after their death) and the receiver (those will receive the jewellery of death diamond). It is a space for the facilitation of co-designing but it is also where negotiation happens.