Objects as Links Between Person and Place
Author
Summary, in English
In a recently conducted interview study, some survivors of traffic victims rate their home as the most important place for remembrance, compared to both the accident site and the burial plot. The reason for this evaluation appears to be the place’s ability to bring about a positive presence of the deceased. Supported by photographs and personal objects, the home serves as a constant reminder, and daily company, of the deceased’s life.
The placing of personal objects, by the accident site or burial plot, could in this context be seen as a way to link the deceased’s personal life to the ‘dead’ and impersonal site. Personalised memorial places could further be held to enable a graspable relation between what the Swedish ethnologist Lynn Åkesson calls the symbolic and diabolic reality, where symbolic reality stands for feelings of unity and meaning of life whereas diabolic reality stands for feelings of disruption and disillusion.
By writing a paper I want to further explore these kinds of linkages and relations in studying a cultural event, encouraging people to contemplate a loved one by leaving gifts, reciting poems, or simply reminiscing, called ‘The altar of death’ placed in an urban park in Malmö in 2006.
The placing of personal objects, by the accident site or burial plot, could in this context be seen as a way to link the deceased’s personal life to the ‘dead’ and impersonal site. Personalised memorial places could further be held to enable a graspable relation between what the Swedish ethnologist Lynn Åkesson calls the symbolic and diabolic reality, where symbolic reality stands for feelings of unity and meaning of life whereas diabolic reality stands for feelings of disruption and disillusion.
By writing a paper I want to further explore these kinds of linkages and relations in studying a cultural event, encouraging people to contemplate a loved one by leaving gifts, reciting poems, or simply reminiscing, called ‘The altar of death’ placed in an urban park in Malmö in 2006.
Department/s
Publishing year
2007
Language
English
Full text
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Design
Keywords
- presence
- Spontaneous memorials
- absence
- abject
- symbolic
- diabolic
Conference name
the 1st Conference arranged by the European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment, Nature, Space and the Sacred: Transdisciplinary Perspectives
Conference date
2007-05-24 - 2007-05-26
Conference place
Bamberg, Germany
Status
Unpublished