Necro-shed – Palliation + Mnemonics and Workshop Vigano

Necro-Shed – Palliation + Mnemonics and Workshop Vigano (Memorialisation was once limited to the elite and only practiced in the highest societal classes – today it is considered a fundamental human right. As societies evolve, the customs and traditions surrounding funerals and memorialisation also change. As we move closer to secularity, there is much talk of what’s ethical, economical and even ecological when it comes to death. In Australia, why have the largely outdated, generic gestures of headstones and urns remained the status quo?)

Workshop Vigano is an end-of-life-care facility to the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Current practice sees hospices administer relief and facilitate rest – Workshop Vigano introduces a tripartite approach with the inclusion of expression; for this hospice is no hospice at all, but a workshop.

A place for those dying to create or experience whatever they choose – be it as tangible as a object or as ephemeral as a moment – a memory to bring forth or to leave behind with friends and family. It seeks to shift social perceptions on end-of-life-care by using the workshop as its public interface – a mediator between binary opposites; a mediator between life and death.