This upcoming lecture-performance examines end-of-life
experiences(ELEs)and their role as tools to help us understand human
consciousness and the emotional intricacy of grief. ELEs typically occur around the time of
death—either before, during, or after—and are often experienced by a person who
has lost a loved one. These experiences
can be interpreted in various ways as premonitions, deathbed visions, golden
light, changes in the temperature or atmosphere, terminal lucidity, or deathbed
coincidences.
I will present an assemblage of imagery,
objects, written accounts, and archival research to explore ELEs and the
liminal states they create between our inner and outer worlds. Collected both in person and online through
interactions with hospice nurses, chaplains, funeral directors, and people of
all spiritual backgrounds and capacities, these remnants of lives lived and
lost are profoundly meaningful to those who experience them and are often
hidden from others out of fear they might be dismissed or misunderstood.
Making connections between the past and present,
fact and fiction, and the objective and private worlds, the lecture invites
audience participation and speculation about the boundaries between the
physical world, the emotional world, and what may exist beyond.
An inquiry into the ELE
Lecture-performance
October 22, 2015
8pm
