Working Thesis Title: The Sweet Forever: How Photography in the Wake of Digital Transformation Might Inform a Re-imagining of Death

Supervisors: Dr Kate Warren, Associate Professor Martyn Jolly, Dr Ella Barclay

The Death Letter Project has received international attention and recognition for its unique approach to helping people contemplate death, whether it’s their own or their loved ones. Upon graduation I'm enthusiastic to initiate a second series of 'death letters' as a continuation of  this research. Additionally, I'm interested in pursuing the art of funeral photography, as an outcome of my research and engagement in re-centring death and dying into the everyday.

Tina FiveAsh is a photo-artist engaged in multiple forms of contemporary photomedia including still and moving-image photography, anaglyptic (3D) and lenticular photography. As a candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy at ANU School of Art and Design, Tina is exploring experimental photographic approaches to the visual representation of death and imagined conceptions of an afterlife, based on scientific studies into near-death experience. An offshoot of this research has been the ambitious undertaking of an online socially-engaged research project titled: The Death Letter Project. Exploring contemporary perspectives of death in Australia the project invited fifty diverse Australians to handwrite a letter responding to: “what is death; and what happens when we die?”. The fascinating content of the letters, combined with photographic portraits of each contributor are featured at: www.deathletterprojects.com.