Drink tea, eat cake and talk about death

Death: a universal reality. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn't favour. It is the single certainty one has in the act of living, which — in itself — is fraught with unpredictability.

Enter the Death Café: a gathering-cum-kaffeeklatsch often paired with cake, during which people assemble to discuss death, grief, loss and, ultimately, life. Originated by Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz, who founded Cafés Mortels in 2004, Death Cafés entered the popular zeitgeist when UK web developer Jon Underwood began hosting Death Cafés in London in 2011 and created the Death Café website.

The very act of eating a slice of cake serves as a reminder that “we relish our senses; we're alive for now and we're celebrating that”, Sean O'Connor — host of the Avbob-supported podcast How To Die and former organiser of a regular Death Café in Woodstock, Cape Town — explains to me via telephone.

Death Cafés have been hosted worldwide since their popularisation in the UK, with one recently taking place at Wits University’s Origins Centre — an apt venue for a conversation about death, for what is death without the origin of life? 

Facilitated by grief counsellor and educator Nadine Rosin, the gathering coincided with artist and academic Carol Preston’s exhibition Cause of Death: A Reflection on the Human and Non-Human Disconnect. And yes, the artist was present. (Here's to Marina Abramović ...)

After conquering the near-labyrinthine layout of this museum dedicated to exhibiting Africa's heritage (emphasising fossils, artefacts, rock art and stone tools), you're met with the exhibition space: an intimate and hushed environment so synonymous with art galleries — and, if one were to interpret this figuratively, our hush-hush approach to talking about — or even acknowledging — the fact that no-one is exempt from death.

Works of mixed media illustrating death filled the space, including a piece wherein Preston overlaid an old, colonial-era map with dog tags and skulls of three of her dead dogs — not only living beings thus, but a death of humanity, too — and a film projected against a wall, its constant loop of footage portraying the literal destruction of Earth at the hands of modern homo sapiens serving as a continuous reminder of how our disregard for the natural world results in the suffering and death of organic beings.

Yet the most intriguing aspect of the exhibition was the array of animal skeletons on display: from skulls to vertebrae, one had to carefully step around the collection of bones on the floor. Closer inspection revealed the artwork's title, cause of death, medium and where Preston found the remnants. 

“This is a most poignant question,” Preston shares in our e-mail correspondence in response to being asked what feelings were evoked inside her by being surrounded by her own artwork — centred on asking “what is the cause of death?” — during a conversation around the topic of death. 

“I had not engaged with the physicality of the work since I had brought it to Johannesburg three weeks ago. Prior to the Death Café event that morning, I had taken a group of postgrad students for a walkabout, which was part of a course I am involved with for the interdisciplinary arts and culture studies department at Wits. I was shocked when I entered the space on my own at the effect the work had on me.

“Slowly having made the artwork over the past nine years and then concerned with the logistics of transporting and setting it all up, I had not had a real opportunity to engage with it as I intended others to. I found talking to the students from an academic stance very difficult. Engaging with the Death Café conversation was an entirely different and refreshing experience. Here I was able to ‘feel’ the work within a different context, and talk about it from an intimate and personal stance. I confess it was a most emotional time for me, hearing how others responded to a body of work that represents relationships with the dead that I had not really realised that I had had. I was profoundly reminded of the animals that were in the room, many of whom I had experienced in the throes of death, and then who had become artworks.

“It was encouraging to me that some attendees felt that I was celebrating and uplifting their lives in the art, which is something that I have grappled with extensively over the years. Am I celebrating lives, or am I using their deaths to further my career as an artist? Does this matter if I am making a strong environmental statement?”

The artwork aside, there was a table with jugs of cold water (no tea or cake, unfortunately) and a group of chairs assembled in a circle where we were asked to take our seats. 

Rosin opened the conversation by asking us to place our hands over our hearts; to close our eyes if we wished to; to stay in the moment in which every heartbeat is a reminder of Life. 

It was the first Death Café Rosin facilitated with a collaboration of this nature, responding “yes and no” when I asked her if the visual “reminders” of death made it easier for attendees to share their stories: “Some people were more interested because of the art. Even if people didn’t realise it, being among the bones triggered something in them.”

As for Preston? “I would say yes. However, at the same time I think that it would depend on what the individual people's motivation was for attending a discussion such as we had on Saturday. Out of the 16 or so who attended the event, there were about nine who contributed to the conversation.

"I would say that each attendee would have a different response to the reminders of death in the room, depending on their motivation for attending. It is impossible to say what this was since many did not contribute to the conversation, but I do hope that any difference to the conversation for the attendees was a positive one. Having said that, and speaking for myself, I was profoundly aware of the objects in the space, and also that experience is both deeply layered and personal."

The curator of the Origins Centre, Tammy Hodgkiss-Reynard, added that “the Death Café worked really well paired with the exhibition and stimulated interesting conversations from different perspectives”.

And different perspectives there were ...

As O’Connor also told me, “There's always a curveball. People do reveal incredibly intimate details of their lives.”

A woman with a blonde buzz cut and piercings shared — in near-tears — her anxieties surrounding the loss of humanity; the loss of kindness; the literal loss of nature (eco-anxiety) with the advent of man-made infrastructures, city life which creates a divide between that which is natural and that which is harmful.

She added that she strongly believes she'll find herself on her death bed asking, “Did I do enough? Was I enough? Did my existence matter or make a difference?” 

The startlingly blue-eyed woman seated to my left, with flowing white hair, clad in bohemian attire, hoped her “legacy” would be one of happiness and joy. 

An elderly Austrian woman — impeccably dressed, coiffed and lipsticked — spoke about her and her parents witnessing the wake of World War 2, resulting in her cheerful outlook on life: she regards every day, every sunrise, every bird call, every flower a blessing, a reminder of life, to appreciate the small things.

A bespectacled woman in her mid-40s had to endure not only the loss of one but two people/personhoods with the passing of her father-in-law, a clever, erudite, lively, adventurous man, rendered bedridden by both an ailing body and an ailing mind.

It's understandable that a typical reaction towards Death Cafés is “Oh, how morbid,” O'Connor told me. “But as soon as people start talking about death, they start talking about life. In a perverse way it's incredibly life-affirming,” he said, citing his deeply anxious mother who attended one of his Death Cafés and found a kindred spirit, with the two eventually “heavily chatting away because they had something in common”.

Conversely, he believes they're not for everyone and that he'd had to discourage people in their nascent stages of grief from attending: "My mom's just died, my dad's f**king distraught',” he illustrates. “No, I think your dad should get some grief support.”

Rosin similarly told me that Death Cafes don't “just bring support for 'Oh, it's your last six weeks of life,' we need this throughout our lives to realise what we are doing”. 

As for the impact of being actively involved in grief and hospice counselling and bearing witness to death — and life — on Rosin's own psyche? 

“They're not embodying that wisdom, they're not realising that permeance,” she says of humans' reaction towards the (admittedly) trite adage of “life is short”. “It's made me more conscious and intentional with my days, with my interaction. It gives me pause to say, Have I made meaning out of this day? Is it such a big deal to freak out about things?' It helps me to keep perspective and to be conscious of being kinder and more compassionate.”

O'Connor echoes Rosin's response, telling me about spending time at the bedside of a woman “who could hardly speak after a stroke”, yet shared memories of picnicking near a waterfall with her brothers as a little girl and how her mom would call them to eat by blowing a police whistle. “There's this smile dancing in this person's eyes. I find it so fulfilling that I can be there and hold that person’s hand. It’s tough ... most people are terrified about dying. I don’t have any answers; there’s no magic answer. I find it very challenging ... and I love that challenge. It causes me to reflect deeply about my existence, my purpose in life, the way I conduct myself. To be familiar with my mortality really does help me appreciate the moment.”

“Attend a Death Café so you know how to live,” Rosin impassionedly shares as the motivator for going to a gathering centred on discussing death, but ultimately life, too. “It helps you be a better human being. You help yourself. Your legacy doesn’t happen at the end, it happens now, it happens today.”

As the ancient Roman poet Virgil wrote:

Death twitches my ear.

“Live,” he says ...

“I'm coming.”

In the interim we shall adhere, before — inevitably — answering.

A CONVERSATION WITH CAROL PRESTON

Do you think that visual/tangible "reminders” of death make a difference in a setting/place where death is being discussed? 

I would say yes. However, at the same time I think it would depend on what the individual person's motivation was for attending a discussion such as we had on Saturday. Out of the 16 or so who attended the event there were about nine who contributed to the conversation. I would say that each attendee would have a different response to the reminders of death in the room, depending on their motivation for attending. It is impossible to say what this was since many did not contribute to the conversation, but I do hope that any difference to the conversation for the attendees was a positive one. Having said that, and speaking for myself, I was profoundly aware of the objects in the space, and also that experience is both deeply layered and personal. 

Your work raises necessary questions and concerns about the destructive impact human rapaciousness and anthropocentrism has on the natural world. What influenced/influences your sense of environmental consciousness?

At a very young age I was deeply concerned by the smoke that was going into the atmosphere from my parents’ smoking habits, but as I grew older I realised that this was minuscule in the broader scheme of things. While I have no idea where my anxiety over pollution originally stemmed from, it certainly has been a driving factor throughout my life. That children are not taught to take care of the environment is abhorrent to me, while I understand the layers of capitalism and politics that have led to this poor environmental behaviour.

Having moved from Johannesburg to the tiny village of Wakkerstroom 10 years ago has heightened this. In rural areas it is impossible to ignore day-to-day wanton disrespect for the natural environment, by all social sectors of the community, worsened by collapsed and corrupt municipalities. The life and death struggle that animals, plants, land and livestock have to endure at the hands of humans is visible here, where it is less so in cities. This drives both my work as a visual artist and my work with children and communities within the arts.

What motivates/motivated you to create art focused on the said destructive impact humankind has on the planet? 

I believe that all humans have a responsibility to use what knowledge and talents they have to improve life in the smallest or biggest ways possible. All of us have strengths that are specific to each of us. This is somewhat like the biblical parable where the servants are given talents (in this context, money) by the master to make good with them, and it is the responsibility for us to use our talents.

I have a background in the visual and performing arts and I feel a distinct sense of responsibility to use this in advocacy for the non-humans that cannot speak for themselves. It is difficult for anyone who works within the environmental sector to believe that any change can be made by the little that we are able to do, but with considered, careful and reflective work, I truly believe that change can be made, and even on a small level it will always count for something. 

Your artist's statement concludes with "the journey through 'Cause of Death' invites us to face the consequences of our actions and reflect on how we can restore balance between human and non-human life on Earth”. How, do you believe, can we restore this balance? 

Throughout modern history it has been the white Christian male that has been at the apex of forces that drive the planet. Over the past 70 years or so women, people of colour, children, the disabled, queer and indigenous populations have begun to claim their rightful place next to the white male. Last to receive rightful respect is the natural environment, which is ironic since all life depends on it. In my opinion this has been too slow, and the faster we move towards 8-billion people, and the faster we move towards an overheated planet, the faster human attitude needs to change. 

The only way there will be any shift is if we move from the biblical “take dominion of the Earth” to the pagan “do no harm” and move towards the inclusive belief systems of indigenous populations that see no inequality between humans and the non-human. But this needs to include everyone, from the top government and corporate environs that drive the greed, violence and fear that we exist in today, down to the children in our classrooms.