Picture by Veronica Pagnamenta.
Death is a Multispecies Gift
Eben Kirksey
Keynote lecture, Telling Death Exhibition, Geneva Botanic Garden, September 16, 2026
Normally, death is an intergenerational gift. The bodies and ashes of the dead usually provide nutrients to microbial communities, plants, fungi, and animals. Modern mortuary practices seek to intervene in regenerative ecological cycles–isolating and alienating the human body from multispecies communities. This talk engages with a number of artworks to consider new practices of responsibility in life and death. Widespread feelings of melancholia are now spreading in an era of extinction, climate change, and catastrophic fires. Innovative mortuary practices are celebrating the life giving potential of the dead–reanimating the intergenerational multispecies dance.
Hosted by Dr. Melanie Boehi, Responsable de l’unité Publics, Jardin Botanique de Genève
