The exhibition ‘Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell’ connects life and death.
Main Message
1. ‘Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell from Stone Age to Present Times’ is about all of us.
- Worldwide, from the Stone Age until our time, and in communities of the most wide-ranging cultural connections – we all share the same destiny as human beings.
- At ‘Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell’, the visitors get to experience a variety of farewell- and death-rituals.
2. Death separates – but the fear of it, and mourning rites, unites.
- Most often communal, the rituals offer the living a comforting setting for their mourning.
- Rites and customs of farewell to the dead are diverse and often exceptional.
- At ‚Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell‘, the visitors get to better appreciate their own part in the life cycle of humankind.
3. For millennia, we, the human beings, have been trying to understand the painful and incomprehensible experience of death.
- Through repression, man seeks to fend off the fear of death.
- Explaining death constitute an essential element of human culture. (J. Assmann)
- ‚Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell‘ tells stories about rebirth, conceptions of a possible afterlife, cultures of remembrance, tabooing, and myth formation.
4. Mourning and mourning-rites help the ones left behind at overcoming the loss.
- Death rites accompany the dead on their way to the beyond.
- Mourning rites connect life and death.
- ‘Between Life & Death – Rites of Farewell’ shows, through exhibits from archaeology, European and non-European ethnology, modern art, and by means of audio installations and dance, a wide range of mourning rites.
5. Sensational exhibits on loan bear witness to the human quest for consolation from death.
- Large museums, like the Landesmuseum Oberösterreich, the University of Vienna, the Völkerkunde Museum Zürich, the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover, and further notable international institutions, provide sensational loans bearing witness of the human quest for consolation from death.
6. Teamwork of renowned scientists.
- A team of renowned scientists from psychology, anthropology, archaeology, history, medical ethics, European and non-European ethnology, and a funeral orator, all contribute to strengthening the seriousness of the exhibition.
7. Expressive design and multi-media.
- A modern, expressive, and subtle design enhances the emotional impact of the exhibition, but also offers exciting entertainment.
- Individual hands-on- and multimedia-elements, carefully chosen for their thematic suitability, make the visit to the exhibition also a vivid sensory experience.
