As social and ecological crises intensify, societies are increasingly confronted with experiences of loss. Yet, grief is highly psychologized and individualized in contemporary Western societies. Our project explores the relationship between grief and society. It creates a transformative space that combines lived experience and academic inquiry. It simultaneously inquires about the way neoliberalism permeates grief as well as its transformative potential.

An interdisciplinary setting with students from psychology, the social sciences, linguistics etc. expands the narrow psychological discourse on grief. A central question is how to connect theory and practice at the intersection of individual and collective, as well as personal and academic experiences. How much space can research hold for emotions? It seems paradoxical to exclude emotions from the research process when they are the subject itself.

The project employs qualitative and creative methods, including (audio)visual approaches, allowing space for subjectivity, creativity, and experimentation. It attempts to illuminate conditions that are often erased by quantitative, ostensibly objective research.

The results will be presented in an exhibition. The accessibility of results aims to bridge the gap between academia and society. Interactive elements within the exhibition attempt to overcome institutional deficits and expand the meaning of interdisciplinarity beyond academia.