Life in Proximity to Death

Life in Proximity to Death: Questions of Design

Karla Rothstein, Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia GSAPP, and John Bruce, Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design, will discuss their respective projects on support for the dead and the dying.

As an architect, Karla Rothstein has been at the forefront of efforts to transform the ways in which we commemorate and place the dead, especially given constraints of space in urban cemeteries and environmental costs of cremation.

Through his work as a filmmaker, John Bruce documents the power of human connections with the dying, who are all too often marginalized from the wider currents of everyday social life. Together, their work raises urgent questions about how to understand life in proximity to death—questions of design, which are just as much questions of dignity and care.

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This event is organized by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University and co-sponsored by Columbia GSAPP.