A cemetery without graves; a commemorative biocentre?

BLANKA SOLÁR AND ADAM VOKÁČ

Exhibition: 12 January - 17 February 2024

Cemetery reserves in the Czech landscape context as commemorative biocentres. The exhibition is an audiovisual confrontation of images of the vision of the "cemetery of the future'' (a bio-diverse composite landscape, a place where it lives) by architect Blanka Solár and the critical inner voice of a gravedigger and crematorium employee, mediated by the audio narration of Adam Vokáč. The latter draws attention to the reality of the contemporary funeral industry with a presentation of the legislative restrictions on the choice of our last footprint.
More than 100 years after the legalization of burial by burning, an industrial response to the problem of burying growing urban populations, the subject requires critical revision. The exhibition encourages reflection on this issue and provides an opportunity to add your signature to the petition for a free and sustainable burial industry, issued by Last Footprint Inc.

The commemorative biocentre is a "vision of a 21st century cemetery" and a subsequent development of Blanka Solár's thesis Projective Space; Cemetery without Graves at the Brno University of Technology 2020. The concept relates to two areas; the issue of biocentres and their maintenance in the Czech cultural landscape and on the other hand, the currently ongoing debate on the liberalisation of the burial law and the update of the funeral industry in the Czech Republic, which promotes modern, more ecological approaches already available abroad - especially but not only the composting of human bodies, the so-called "terramation" (Germany, USA) and the update of existing methods in a less environmentally burdensome.

The opening will include a lecture and debate with the authors of the exhibition and Vilém Jurek:

Blanka Solár She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology and completed a year of postgraduate studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She is the founding architect of the bams office studio and the Cemetery of No Graves initiative with the aim of connecting relevant experts and communication for the theme of the commemorative biocentre.Since 2023 she has been a member of the Last Trace Association. She is currently engaged in her own architectural practice and activism related to natural burial.

Adam Vokáč is a gravedigger and caretaker of the Luční cemetery in Ďáblický cemetery in Prague. He graduated from the American Green Burial Masterclass and later founded the Last Stop Association, which deals with natural burial. Through it, he spreads awareness about new possibilities in the burial industry and aims at their general and legislative acceptance.