The feeling that I had understood something important and that I needed to try to articulate it.

I don’t believe my perspective is the only valid one, and that probably protects me from anger or sadness. I know many people who were genuinely satisfied with the funeral services they chose. Like in any field, there are professionals in the funeral sector who work with great care
and integrity. It would be simplistic to reduce everything to cynicism
or exploitation.

I also think it is somewhat naïve to imagine that we can simply step outside of our time. We live in highly individualistic and comfort-oriented societies. Very few people are willing to renounce convenience
or personalization. That is simply the context we inhabit.

What interests me is creating moments and spaces for reflection. These are not for condemning but for considering the conditions of this world
we live in. Those conditions are not immutable. We sometimes forget
that both individually and collectively we are capable of making different choices. My work is less about denouncing than about opening up
the possibility of alternatives.

We are buying something very real: a service that takes full responsibility for the logistics of death.

When someone dies, there are administrative procedures, transportation, legal requirements, technical operations, time constraints. Most people,
if they are honest, would not want to handle all of this themselves.
Over time, we have delegated not only the practical aspects of death,
but also much of its ritual dimension. And as I mentioned earlier, we have grown accustomed to convenience. We expect systems to manage complexity on our behalf.

So yes, what we are purchasing is organization, expertise, and a certain form of relief at a moment of vulnerability.

But I believe the essential question lies elsewhere. In societies where everything moves quickly, pauses are rare. We often do not take the time to reflect on what we truly want. And yet, we only die once. Taking time
to consider how we wish to be accompanied in death can be an act
of care for ourselves. It is also an act of care for those who survive us.
We should also think about what we wish to leave behind. It may prevent confusion, financial strain, or emotional conflict.

There is also a structural dimension. As in many sectors, powerful economic actors and lobbying groups shape legislation and restrict diversity within the market. Funeral laws and infrastructures often reflect industrial interests rather than ecological concerns or cultural plurality. Death is not a trivial commodity. It touches something fundamental
in human existence. To leave it entirely to market logic, without questioning its framework, seems deeply problematic.

So while we are indeed buying a necessary service, we should still ask: under what conditions? With what alternatives? And who ultimately benefits from the current structure?

Yes, I believe it is possible — and in fact, it is already happening in various places.

In recent years, numerous initiatives have emerged that seek to rethink funeral practices beyond purely commercial frameworks. Natural burial grounds and forest cemeteries are being developed. Biodegradable coffins and shrouds made of untreated fabrics are also appearing. In addition, forms of human composting are being developed in different parts
of the world. Natural Organic Reduction is often referred to as human composting. This process has been legalized in places such as Washington State in the United States. It offers a way for the body to return directly
to the soil without chemical intervention.

What is particularly interesting is that these alternatives are not necessarily radical inventions. Many of them are closer to older, simpler practices
that predate industrialized funeral systems. They propose dignity
not through monumentality or expense. Instead, they achieve dignity through coherence. This coherence aligns with ecological realities, spatial limitations, and economic accessibility.

A dignified death, in this sense, does not need to be luxurious or highly individualized. It can simply mean allowing the body to follow a natural process while creating space for meaningful rituals around it. Dignity
may lie less in the product purchased. It is more about the relationship maintained — with the earth, with the living, and with memory.

Yes, completely. But even more than the ecological impact, what mobilized me was the sheer absurdity of the situation.

In many countries today, cemetery concessions are much shorter
than they used to be. When municipalities reclaim abandoned graves,
they often find bodies that have barely decomposed — sometimes even partially mummified. This creates both logistical and ethical problems.

Burial methods prevent decomposition in addition to what we ingest during our lifetimes, such as antibiotics and preservatives. Embalming practices, varnished coffins, and sealed vaults are all contributing factors. The body cannot easily re-enter a “normal” organic cycle of degradation.
It also cannot easily reintegrate into the soil.

This feels profoundly illogical, especially at a time when cemeteries
are running out of space. We are preventing the very transformation
that would allow continuity.

So yes, it has changed how I imagine my own death. I want to be buried directly in the earth. I wish for no decorum and no unnecessary materials. This is to simply allow the body to return to the soil. Not out of asceticism, but out of a desire not to leave behind an additional problem. If we are, etymologically and biologically, connected to humus, then allowing
that transformation seems coherent.

Technically, I am not directly in the soil. About ten layers of lycra cover my body. I later tear them away in a process that resembles molting.
In the first part, sand continuously falls over me like in an hourglass. Surprisingly, this sensation is peaceful.

There is a moment when the body stops being a defined boundary and becomes something more porous. I would not describe it in a romantic way. Instead, I would describe it in a very simple, physical sense. When
you are immersed in the sea, you can momentarily forget your body
as an isolated entity. The same happens when lying on sand or grass.
It seems to dissolve into something larger.

That dissolution is not frightening. It brings a certain tranquility.
In "The Passing Body", this calm coexists with effort. This is especially true during the molting sequence. The sequence is physically demanding
and almost combative. But the underlying sensation is one of continuity rather than rupture. The body is not ending; it is transforming.

I am not sure there is such a separation. Performance is always real, because it is your own body exposed in time and space.
There is no substitute, no representation — it is physically happening.

In “The Passing Body”, I am not thinking in symbolic terms while performing. It is a moment of pure sensation. Nothing intellectual.
I am not telling myself that I am embodying an allegory or staging
a metaphor. I am simply trying to reach and inhabit a particular state.

It feels extremely real, but it is difficult to put into words. The thinking happens before and after. During the performance, it is about breathing, weight, texture, resistance, effort. The body knows something that language cannot fully translate.

I am not sure whether manual labor alone changes one’s perception. However, direct contact with the soil certainly does. As in “The Passing Body”, that proximity to earth brings us closest to the physical reality
of burial. I do not know. Does someone who works the land every day imagine it as the place of their own death? Perhaps for them it is simply work. But for me, as someone who is completely urban, touching soil
is always striking.

It immediately brings me back to my condition as organic matter.
There is something very concrete about it. It collapses abstraction.
Death is no longer a distant concept — it becomes material, tactile.

In “The Gravedigger”, I dig and bury domestic waste. Before the camera reveals that it is actually “our” funeral, the gesture becomes even more layered. The soil is not only a place of return, but also a witness to what
we choose to leave behind.

For me, no — precisely not. But I know I have gone through a process.
This process allows me to approach this question rationally. It shows me
it is the only solution that truly makes sense.

When I speak with many people, they often describe the idea of being
in the ground as frightening. Being surrounded by worms
and microorganisms is sometimes even called “disgusting.”
There is a visceral resistance. Our imagination has been shaped
to reject decomposition as something dirty or degrading.

And yet, when I speak with professionals. These people include those who work in ecology, soil science, or even certain funeral practitioners sensitive to these issues. There is often broad agreement that natural decomposition is coherent and desirable. The fear seems to belong more to cultural conditioning than to biological reality.

We are comfortable with the idea of being reduced to ashes through combustion. However, we are uncomfortable with the idea of feeding
the soil. That says a lot about how far we have distanced ourselves
from organic processes.

For me, it is first and foremost a matter of elementary common sense.
We are facing ecological crises. Cemeteries are running out of space. Funerals are expensive and increasingly difficult for many families to afford. And yet there is a simple solution. We can return to older forms of burial by placing the body directly in the ground. This allows it to decompose naturally so that life can continue its cycle.

Instead, we have done everything possible to interrupt that cycle. We seal bodies and treat them chemically. We encase them in varnished wood
or concrete vaults. This prevents the very transformation that makes life regenerative.

Of course, this “return to humus” also carries philosophical and even spiritual dimensions. But before all that, it is simply coherent.
We are organic beings embedded in ecosystems. Therefore, allowing
our bodies to reintegrate into those ecosystems should not be radical.
It should be obvious.

I think we are constantly inventing rituals, even when we believe we
are simply repeating old ones. At the same time, many of these gestures have existed since the dawn of humanity. These include offering food, gathering together, and speaking the name of the deceased.

These practices respond to very elementary human impulses that do not change much across time or geography. Whether people rely on tradition or invent more personal forms of ritual does not matter so much to me. What matters is that rituals are necessary. They help us process emotions and events that exceed our immediate capacity for understanding.

People begin telling stories they have lived through. And very quickly,
you realize that there is no single way of thinking about or experiencing death.

The market is extremely misleading in that sense. It creates the impression that everyone thinks in similar ways because it offers standardized solutions. But we should not confuse the homogeneity of the market
with the diversity of people. The market is uniform; people are not.
Human beings have an astonishing resilience against homogenization.

I love talking about death within my own family. I have a 96-year-old grandmother who will, inevitably, die one day soon. It is strangely beautiful to discuss these questions with her. I think she had simply never been asked how she imagined her own death.

In guided visits, something equally powerful happens. Strangers who do not know each other begin speaking about their dead. They discuss
the concrete circumstances of a loss in lived detail. These conversations are not in abstract philosophical or religious terms. It is extremely intimate. And yet people speak. I think that is because there are very few places where one can truly talk about death in that way.

This is precisely why I do this job. In recent years, I have increasingly embraced collective artistic processes. They create spaces
that are different from the usual frameworks of social life. They are freer spaces — freer to think, freer to feel.

Art does not replace religious or institutional rituals. However, it can open temporary zones. In these zones, alternative forms of gathering
and reflection become possible. In these spaces, we are not only consumers or mourners; we are participants, co-creators of meaning.

For me, that is one of the essential roles of art today. It creates conditions where we can rethink together what seems fixed. Art allows
us to experiment, even modestly. We can explore new ways of relating
to life, death, and to each other.

“Live Well, Die Well” certainly contains a critical dimension — particularly toward the standardization and commercialization of death. Works like “Custom Made Funerals” clearly expose the marketing language
and aesthetics that structure the funeral industry.

But the project is not limited to critique. It also proposes — sometimes concretely, sometimes poetically — alternative ways of imagining funerary practices. “The Cemetery and the Forest”, for instance, visualizes
the gradual transformation of built, mineral cemeteries into living ecosystems. The workshops around offerings create small-scale collective rituals. Even the wool coffin prototypes suggest other material possibilities.

So yes, it is something in between: a space where critique and imagination coexist. Critique alone can feel sterile; proposal alone can feel naïve.
Art allows both to be held together.

I do not think there is a single model. There are so many traditions across cultures. Many cemeteries are extraordinarily beautiful, even if they
do not correspond at all to Western customs.

Personally, I am drawn to the idea of the cemetery as a park — a space where everyday life continues. A place where people can walk, sit, picnic, play, exercise. In that configuration, there would not be “places of life”
on one side and “places of death” on the other. Death would become
an extension of life.

Perhaps this is where I become slightly more philosophical. As human beings, we have the capacity to think symbolically about our existence.
The appearance of a cemetery reveals a great deal about how a society conceives life and death. If it is rigid, monumental, closed off, it suggests one worldview. If it is open, porous, integrated into daily life, it suggests another.

Yes, definitely. I feel much more serene about the idea of dying. Thinking about death in biological, ecological terms has removed some
of its abstraction and fear. It has become less of a rupture and more
of a transformation.

That does not mean I am indifferent to loss. But I feel less anxiety
about my own physical disappearance. It seems part of a continuum rather than an interruption.

I do not know yet. Perhaps that could become another project — organizing one’s own funeral while still alive.

I want something simple. I do not want my farewell to become a burden
or a conflict. I would choose the most natural option available. It should be within the legal framework of the country where I happen to be when
that time approaches.

Something simple. Something that allows my body to return to the earth without leaving behind an additional problem.

The rest — the memories, the stories — belong to the living.