The Grief Space
Spaces. Small and discreet, the word deceptively demands to take up space. Derived from the Latin Spatium meaning 'space' or 'extent', spaces has evolved to refer to areas or intervals that are available, empty, or unoccupied. Physical spaces, virtual spaces, and conceptual spaces. Functioning as a form of holding, a space is where things can be contained, reserved, or kept in abeyance. A space can be a physical location or a conceptual environment designed for a designated use.
Grief, paradoxical and slippery to define, affects each and every one of us in numerous capacities: the loss of a loved one, the loss of a dream, grief for the destruction of the natural world and vital environmental resources, witnessing the sorrows of the world; wars, pandemics, the millions made refugees, lives cruelly upended and lost. Grief is for a lost job, a failed relationship, the loss of a home or the loss of primal needs such as community and a sense of social belonging.
To what extent do we make space for grief in public spaces? To what extent is a public space for grief understood as a form of social care? The Grief Space is here to fill up, occupy, form a container, a vessel, and create a space, physically and tangibly, to sit alongside this universal, mischievously tricky to hold human experience.
We invite you to sit, look, think, share, and make space for something that binds us collectively.
Your grief is welcome here.
