Olivia Loncar-Bartolini

Democratizing Death, Rethinking Burial Practices in the Urban Realm

My thesis imagines a speculative future where death is democratized, land ownership is collective and burial practices are cyclical. My project is situated along the Humber River Valley in Toronto, a quiet natural enclave that is neither central to the urban fabric nor removed from it. This allows my project, a sprawling pavilion as well as human remains processing center, and directory, to move along the riverbank (between the adjacent ravine) utilizing Earth and Water as resources and gently following the landscape in a series of humble interventions that mimic the journey (both spiritual and physical) of embarking from life to what comes after. Incorporated into the pavilion, a series of human-powered batteries are then transmuted into panels of light, through the process of breaking down the bacteria in human remains. This store of energy - also known as microbial fuel cell - represents the deceased person, demarcated through a system in the directory at the entrance and beginning of the visitor's "journey" to their loved one. Each rod of light sustains itself for a period of five years, fading slowly over time, before disappearing completely and being replaced with a new body. This symbolic process allows for "plots" to be re-used and self-sustained - not permanently owned. This process - democratizing death - trades ideas of land ownership for borrowed space, as we borrow the land that Toronto is built upon fron it's original occupants, allowing us to gently intervene and to become equal in death - as the greatest equalizer. The human remains are broken down at the body processing program through alkaline hydrolysis, which renders them liquified, after which the liquid remains are placed into a battery cell capsule and placed in their designated plot.

“My thesis aims to democratize death, in which we all become equal, responding to an urgent need to reimagine burial practices and cemetery spaces in the urban realm.”