My area of speciality is the world that surrounds loss, death, grief, and how we remember those we have lost. This is a huge area but one which interests me hugely and which I will continue to explore and hope to add value to. To expand my knowledge and supplement my interest in death studies, I have volunteered to do some work on a children’s cancer insight panel with Cancer Research UK. This makes use of the experiences and knowledge of those who have been close to cancer to try and make changes. This is similar to previous work I did for Pfizer. Another recent example of increasing my experience of what happens in this health space was attending a Symposium looking at the use of the arts in palliative care.
I also agreed to help an academic with her research. Jennie Riley is researching grave goods at Aberdeen University. She interviewed me about my experiences with what went into Rebecca’s coffin.
I just wish I had made this leap into something new to me well before now.
I have previously written about my health and how the mental side of grief has a huge impact on physical health. As I have been finishing my degree, my father has been ill, and just last week he died.
I mentioned this briefly in a post about a trip I took to the far north of Scotland to take photographs of sea cliffs. This post is shown here:
This has been a reminder of the roots of my project, of Rebecca’s illness and death and of my mother’s journey through Alzheimer’s and her death just days before Rebecca’s. In a way, my father’s death feels like the end of an era. The end of a generation where the knowledge, stories, and experiences they held fade. I was thinking of my decision not to directly include any images of Rebecca in my work. My mother and father were another step further removed from my work, which wasn’t about them but where they featured in my thoughts.
One huge positive of death at this time has been that so many people have offered support. I was speaking to ex-student Helen Rosemier about her published book, “Zones of Possibility”, while researching hauntology. Helen asked if I wanted to have a chat. I have had similar responses from students who studied level 3 with me, whether they are still working on level 3 or have just finished. Mirjam Lorek also got in touch, asking if I wanted to talk. I was at a student get-together, and the students there also offered support and condolences. A thankyou to John Burns, Caroline Black, Mary Kyd, Zoe Wright and Neil Gallacher. It also interests me that so many have shared experiences and whose work has similar elements to mine and who have used their work in a similar way. This is a positive from my study in that it isn’t for the sake of studying or gaining initials after my name but because it has a real practical benefit.
At this get-together, we visited a series of different exhibitions around Edinburgh. While these exhibitions aren’t necessarily what I would have chosen myself, it was nice to put together an itinerary for the group, and I very much enjoyed these exhibitions and experiencing them through the eyes of others. Interesting to me that I don’t look at exhibitions in the same way I used to before my degree, or rather before the end of my degree. I was fascinated by how the exhibitions were put together, how sounds were used, how projectors and screens were used, and by the still images and installations. These elements interested me every bit as much as the content of the exhibitions.
I mention these exhibitions because of my different perception in life after my years of study, after my experiences close to loss and because of the knowledge I have gained. There is so much of the things around me which feel differently. These exhibitions are just a very recent example.