The Mourning After Exhibition and Public Program will take place from 24.7.-20.9.2025 at RMIT Design Hub, as part of the Now or Never City of Melbourne festival.
Exhibition details
The Mourning After exhibition invites people to explore grief in all its forms—as something felt, shared, and expressed through different rituals and creative practices. The exhibition offers space for reflection, connection, and conversation, with workshops that explore how creative methods can help us understand grief better. These range from personal experiences of loss to collective grief like mourning for the collective injustices and the healthy planet.
Throughout the exhibition, there are various forms and scales of grief and mourning—from the ecological grief (Hesterman, Ilyas, Berkowitz) and the Digital Anthropocene (Cope, Centre for Reworlding), anticipatory grief (Machine Listening), mourning as a collective/ connective ritual (Couzens, Clarke, The Death Letter Project) and grief as a lifelong companion (Frost Nicholson, Thoms, Mahoney). These works are invitations to reflect on different textures, scales and emotionalities of grief and mourning.
Through the artist’s works and workshops, The Mourning After offers a gentle invitation to reflect on grief and mourning as shared social and cultural experiences, and how these might help us imagine, and connect to, more hopeful futures.
Exhibition Opening Thursday, 24.7.25 - 6pm at RMIT Design Hub (150 Victoria St, Carlton VIC 3000)
Public Program - Free Workshop Series
The public program includes a series of free workshops that explore themes ranging from AI afterlives, objects for memory-making and ecogrief writing. To create opportunities for interaction, connection and sharing workshops will be capped at 20 participants, so registration is essential. Watch this space for upcoming registration links.
Week 1: Thurs July 24 – Saturday July 26
Friday July 25, 11.30 - 1 pm
Grief Mapping is a reflective postcard-making workshop led by socially engaged artists and researchers Larissa Hjorth and Tamara Borovica. Using visual prompts and creative writing, the workshop invites participants to explore the many shapes grief can take—whether connected to people, animals, places, or the environment. Together, we’ll map personal and collective experiences of loss, while considering how mobile media and everyday rituals help us express and navigate grief. This is a gentle space for creativity, connection, and conversation about the things that matter most.
Saturday, July 26, 11.30-1 pm
FeelingScapes is a body mapping workshop led by Tamara Borovica (Playbour Inc.) that explores grief as a deeply embodied experience. Through movement and visual art, participants are invited to tune into how grief is felt, held, and expressed in the body. Together, we will map these sensations—making the often-invisible work of grieving visible, shareable, and open to reflection. This workshop offers a creative and compassionate space to honour personal and collective experiences of loss.
Week 2: Tues July 29 – Saturday Aug 2
Wednesday, July 30, 11.30-1 pm
Meditating with eco-grief - meditation and group discussion on the theme of ecological and climate grief, our disconnect form the natural world and contemplative practice facilitated by conservation scientist and meditation teacher Ascelin Gordon. The session will involve guided meditation, silent sitting and space for discussion and reflection. Topics explored include how eco-grief shows up in our bodies, the challenges and benefits of leaning to connect with difficult emotions in meditation (and how to do this safely), and how this can change the way we relate to our eco-grief.
Thursday, July 31, 11.30-1 pm
Grief Poetry for Non-Poets – Writing poetry can be a cathartic outlet for thoughts and emotions, especially for those who are grieving. Yet, many shy away from poetry writing as they feel their works would not be good enough. In this workshop for non-poets only, end-of-life researcher Dr Katrin Gerber, introduces participants to styles of grief poetry (such as found poetry, visual poetry and blackout poetry) to overcome their poetic imposter syndrome and instead freely play with words to express emotions around grief and loss.
Friday, August 1, 11.30-1 pm
The Death Letter project, led by Tina FiveAsh, a photographer and social activist whose work focuses on death and dying, offers a letter writing workshop that explores two simple yet profound questions: what is death; and what happens when we die? The workshop and the letters are intended to inspire fresh thought, contemplation, re-imagining and conversation about death - undoubtedly the most mystifying, feared, and significantly undiscussed human experience in modern western society.
Week 3: Tues Aug 5 – Saturday August 9
Thursday, Aug 7, 11.30 - 1pm
Writing Through Eco Grief workshop by The Grief Cocoon founder Gabriella Georges explores the transformative power of creative writing for climate-related distress and grief. The Grief Cocoon draws inspiration from environmental and nature poets transforming their work into creative writing prompts to express and transform the pain, sadness, and despair into greater care for the Planet. This workshop is suitable for anyone from environmental activists, outdoor enthusiasts, nature lovers, or city-dwellers with an appreciation for green and blue spaces.
Friday, Aug 8, 11.30- 1 pm
Mapping Climate Feelings is a creative workshop series by Linda Knight, Larissa Hjorth and Tamara Borovica that invites young people to explore and express how climate change feels—in words, images, and movement. As more of us experience eco-anxiety and eco-grief, especially young people, this workshop offers a space to slow down, reflect, and creatively map emotions around the climate crisis. Through drawing, storytelling, and embodied practices, we’ll explore new ways to make sense of climate feelings—and imagine hopeful, collective futures in the face of uncertainty.
Week 4: Tues Aug 12 – Saturday Aug 16
Thursday, Aug 14, 11.30-1 pm
Ecogrief, Creativity and Youth Resilience workshop by Shahee Ilyas, a transdisciplinary designer and doctoral candidate at RMIT’s School of Media and Communication, explores young people’s creative response to ecogrief. Shahee’s research examines the modulating power of images on social, philosophical and political values mainly focusing on climate change. In this workshop, he uses creative practice and visual design to enable participants to express complex emotions of grief, promoting a collective effort towards environmental resilience. The findings from these workshops will provide insights into the development of the online tools for responses to ecological grief.
Friday, Aug 15, 11.30 - 1 pm
In touch with support and tone: Cellular Reparative Practices for Grief is a workshop led by Vanessa Chapple, doctoral candidate Creative Agency, School of Education, RMIT and Somatic Movement Educator (Body-Mind Centering®) Vanessa is cofounder of somaontogeny.com who engage with ecosomatic practices for wellbeing and generative futures. In this sensing-movement workshop we will engage with our bodies to find support and tone for our diverse living experiences of personal and collective grief and loss. Through attunement to the cellular breath and specific practices in which we can experience a deep sense of the ground beneath us, there exist possibilities for renewed tone and engagement with the world around us as we navigate contemporary times which can be laden with confusion and climate anxiety.
Week 5: Tues Aug 19 - Saturday Aug 23
Thursday, Aug 21, 11.30- 1 pm
A drop in the ocean: attuning for posthuman futures by Fiona Hillary and the Posthuman Lab is an immersive workshop exploring posthuman methods for creating affective futures. Thinking with our oceanic entanglements, this workshop creates space to explore situated methods of care for these uncertain times.
Friday, Aug 22, 11.30- 1 pm
BILYA - Creative Lab by Jen Rae and collaborators from the Centre for Reworlding seeks to bring together a group of people working across Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, culture & the arts, climate and social sciences, Indigenous knowledge systems, UX/UI design, and funding to ideate and inform the next iteration of BILYA - a non-proprietary relational mapping platform to connect those working at the intersections of climate, adaptation, social justice, culture & the arts to adapt practices, knowledge + resource share, and amplify collaborative capacity.
Saturday, Aug 23, 11.30- 1 pm
Embodied Eco Grief Circle by The Grief Cocoon founder Gabriella Georges offers a welcoming space where you’ll be gently led through exercises designed to process, express, and transform your grief. Whether it manifests as numbness, anger, despair, or another emotion, this session is crafted to help you engage with and release these emotions using your body, breath, and voice. You’ll foster a deeper connection with yourself, and with others who are experiencing climate grief. As we collectively explore, express, and share our grief, the burden lessens, paving the way for renewed hope and empowerment.
Week 6: Tuesday Aug 26 – Saturday Aug 30
Wednesday, Aug 27, 11.30-1 pm
Meditating with eco-grief - meditation and group discussion on the theme of ecological and climate grief, our disconnect form the natural world and contemplative practice facilitated by conservation scientist and meditation teacher Ascelin Gordon. The session will involve guided meditation, silent sitting and space for discussion and reflection. Topics explored include how eco-grief shows up in our bodies, the challenges and benefits of leaning to connect with difficult emotions in meditation (and how to do this safely), and how this can change the way we relate to our eco-grief.
Thursday, Aug 28, 11.30-1 pm
Taking it with you: tactile explorations and the treasured thingness of things led by Peta Murray and Pia Interlandi begins with a provocation: “I’ve worn my grandmother’s wedding band since the day she died more than a decade ago. My hand looks naked without it, it’s literally changed the shape of my finger. It’s as much hers as it is mine....” What are the objects you hold dear? What will you take with you? What will you leave behind? Deploying playful interventions and material practices (tracings, copyings, and ritual renderings) this hands-on workshop facilitated by ‘deathies’ and scholars Pia Interlandi and Peta Murray will explore the potencies of material things as sites of shared and secular ceremony, personal and public, and the lineages of meaning and legacy lodged within cherished relics, inherited or inheritable. Come and join us in passing the torch, and other household objects! This workshop will challenge you to tease apart notions of sentiment from salvage and to re consider the relationships between your heirlooms and the hereafter. (Participants will be required to bring at least one sentimental object to the workshop.)
Friday, Aug 29, 3.00- 5 pm
The Tomorrow Party, hosted by WonderLab (Monash University) is a time-travelling workshop that guides guests to imagine felt futures shaped by climate crisis, care, and collective action. Playing with collaborative storytelling and imaginative agency, we will together create a relational space for sitting with anticipatory eco-grief as it coexists with agency, connection, and reawakened hope.
Week 7: Tues Sept 2 – Saturday Sept 6
Thursday, Sept 4, 11.30- 1.00 pm
The Do-It-Yourself Commemoration of the Dead Workshop with the DeathTech research team invites participants to engage with an understanding of how the ritualised care and commemoration of the dead is becoming distinctly more personalised, creative and ‘DIY’ as communities respond to global shifts and trends (secularisation, migration, digital death, etc). Participants are invited to envisage a DIY-rich commemorative future and design a ‘one stop shop’ for a wide range of publicly available Deathcare products and services, both to sell to others, and to choose for themselves.
Friday, Sept 5, 3 - 4.30 pm
Climate grief in the classroom (and other non-clinical spaces): Workshop for teachers and community leaders by Blanche Verlie. Although more and more people are experiencing eco-anxiety and climate-grief and much research on these topics is being conducted in the realms of psychology and mental health, most people who experience ecological distress do not seek professional therapy. What then might be the opportunities for community members to respond to ecological distress within everyday settings? In this workshop, we’ll explore key strategies that can be used by teachers, activists, and other community members in settings such as schools, workplaces, community organisations, and interpersonal relations, to support people in their journey through climate anxiety.
Week 8: Tuesday Sept 9 – Saturday Sept 13
Thursday, Sept 11, 11.30-1 pm
Grief Mapping is a reflective postcard-making workshop led by socially engaged artists and researchers Larissa Hjorth and Tamara Borovica. Using visual prompts and creative writing, the workshop invites participants to explore the many shapes grief can take—whether connected to people, animals, places, or the environment. Together, we’ll map personal and collective experiences of loss, while considering how mobile media and everyday rituals help us express and navigate grief. This is a gentle space for creativity, connection, and conversation about the things that matter most.
Friday, Sept 12, 11.30-1 pm
Chat with the Dead – a workshop allowing participants to have a live conversation with a deathbot, an AI-based chatbot that mimics how a deceased historical figure would respond. This workshop, led by end-of-life researcher Dr Katrin Gerber, invites participants to experience an interaction with a deathbot firsthand to spark discussions around the usability, advantages, limitations and ethics of deathbots.
Week 9: Tuesday Sept 16 – Saturday Sept 20
Thursday, Sept 18, 11.30-1 pm
Mapping Climate Feelings is a creative workshop series by Linda Knight, Larissa Hjorth and Tamara Borovica that invites young people to explore and express how climate change feels—in words, images, and movement. As more of us experience eco-anxiety and eco-grief, especially young people, this workshop offers a space to slow down, reflect, and creatively map emotions around the climate crisis. Through drawing, storytelling, and embodied practices, we’ll explore new ways to make sense of climate feelings—and imagine hopeful, collective futures in the face of uncertainty.
Friday, Sept 19, 11.30-1 pm
AI + the afterlife workshop by Jed Brubaker, Caitlin McGrane, Larissa Hjorth and Tamara Borovica, invites audience members interested in how technology may change practices around end-of-life planning, remembrance, and digital legacy to explore the possibilities and pitfalls created by recent developments in AI for how we care for and represent the dead. In this co-design workshop, participants will co-create visions of the future of "AI and the Afterlife." These visions will form the basis of a shared vocabulary and research agenda for this emergent space and help create a socio-technical future for the dead that is respectful, engaging, and culturally sensitive.
Saturday, Sept 20, 11.30-1 pm
What still sustains is a workshop led by Jacina Leong. This workshop offers arts workers space to pause and recalibrate amidst burnout, grief, and exhaustion—not to fix what’s broken, but to hold what feels unspeakable, to sit with what we may be grieving, and to explore forms of creativity, refusal, and regeneration that can sustain us within systems that won’t.