TanatoLab

TanatoLab is a laboratory where we will explore alternatives that challenge the classic perception of individual death: transition from one existence to another, transformation and change, nexus or liminal space, co-dependent decomposition. We provide a comfortable non-judgmental environment for sharing experiences and approaches to the concept of death.

Based on Donna Haraway's theory and conclusions from research done by the DU-DA collective in Morir Guay. Voces y relatos para no tener miedo, we will share audio, visual and written documentaries to explore diverse perspectives regarding the issue of death. Active participation will take place through writing, body work, fermentation and the observation of organic material. We will offer a broader perspective about death and explore the connections between transformation, biopolitics, time, narrative and fiction, what is human and “more-than-human”, co-dependency and rituals.

• Death in the Capitalocene. Anxiety about the end of life is widely spread throughout our society. Paradoxically, however, death is a taboo, an uncomfortable subject we try to avoid facing. Through a creative writing exercise, we will explore the current imagery of death and introduce more amicable approaches to it.

• Suspension of life. Through guided meditation, our bodies will enter a liminal space where we connect with a place “between” birth and death. We will create a space to inhabit fear, strangeness, and the corporality that sustains life and death. Through this space, we will enable the possibility of detaching ourselves from the material world and connecting with a continuous process of transformation, which is a body that will be born and die.

• An apple is my mother and a worm is my daughter. Through a speculative fiction exercise, we will explore the links between death and time not only from a human perspective but from a non-anthropocentric understanding. How can we appreciate the existences and processes of life and death that take place beyond the human body?

• Kefir never dies. The microbial continuum decomposes organic matter, nourishing other lives, perpetuating existences that neither age nor experience programmed death. We will engage in the living processes of fermentation and putrefaction and in composting as a natural earthly condition and we will question the cultural limits between our conceptions of disgust and decay.

We will deal with issues related to death, ageing and putrefaction. Consider if you are ready and feel like taking this journey with us.