Karolina Rusak
Keywords: Grief, Mourning, Death care
Internship: workingmenblues Amsterdam
Read Thesis
Katabasis explores mourning and memory through deeply personal and artistic lens, challenging the Western growing taboo around death and the disappearance of mourning traditions and rituals. Rooted in the artist’s own experiences of grief, this functional art piece responds to the emotional disconnection fostered by a secular, fast-paced society that often suppresses conversations about death. Acknowledging that, the project proposes a modular, customisable urn which becomes an evolving presence in the home - one that embraces grief as a restorative process grounded in care.
In the contemporary times mourning is still an under-discussed topic leading to shame, stigma and massive disappearance of death related rites and traditions.I see an urgency in normalising conversation about death and burial laws to create healthier environment for grieving.
Katabasis is an ongoing service-craft project, which focuses on collaboration between the mourner, the deceased, and the maker in a process of making an interactive urn. With passing months of grieving, the mourner shares their fondest memories of the departed loved one. These are translated into magnetically attached ceramic ornaments, which work with a provided home of the ashes - the urn.
The project reframes the act of mourning as a creative and restorative process, inviting mourners to engage with loss in a structured, yet intimate way. Inspired by tending to the lost loved one’s graves it offers fostering continued connection, emotional expression and a sense of beauty in grief. To actively choose beauty - is to care.
To read more, visit Katabasis website here.