Narration of Embodied Memories

Abstract

The research deals with funerary scenes of London through various aspects of significance such as memory, material and ritual. The expression and reaction to one's death in the built environment are studied through both quantitatively and qualitatively, where the first looks into the underlying facts in London's history and current statistics depicting indifferent facts at a meta-level. The later focuses more into human experiences and feelings throughout grieving period and influences of spacial quality in how people remember and practice rituals. The project, which derives from this research is a funeral and memorial space in St. George's Garden, which locates itself within the bustle of London city centre. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide a collective memorial where encloses personal attachment and their remembrances. Therefore, through modulating of embodied experiences and sequences of different spacial character, one creates their individual memories with the deceased and exchange farewell. The physical fabric of the memorial is shared collectively, while the personal sentiment towards the material is established through funeral ritual.