From This Flesh, Flowers Will Bloom
CC Baró de Viver, CC Navas i CC La Casa Elizalde
Del 18/01 al 04/03, del 03/10 al 29/11/2025 y del 23/01 al 21/03/2026
“From This Flesh, Flowers Will Bloom” is the installation selected by Temporals along with eight other visual arts proposals to tour thirteen venues of the Xarxa de Centres Cívics de Barcelona between January 2025 and July 2026.
“From This Flesh, Flowers Will Bloom” combines a sculptural installation with a series of video interviews featuring experts from various fields related to death and ecology.
On five screens, interviews are projected with specialists developing innovative projects on ecology and death. Among these voices is Sarafina Landis, a death doula and advocate for ecological funerals. In her testimony, Landis describes how she supports individuals through the dying process, offering psychological, social, and bureaucratic assistance to both those facing the end of their lives and their loved ones. Her work is an example of the death positive movement, which seeks to demystify and normalize death as an essential part of the human experience.
Another testimony comes from the caretaker of the Bluestem ecological cemetery in North Carolina, showcasing how the funeral industry can transform to address the climate crisis. This natural cemetery is characterized by burying bodies directly in the earth, without embalming or caskets. It serves as a model of sustainability, demonstrating that viable and environmentally respectful alternatives exist.
The installation also features Sarah Lasswell, an artisan who crafts eco-friendly coffins using willow she grows herself, illustrating how small material choices can make a significant difference. Additionally, Julia Cid, a member of the organization Som Provisionales, provides a pedagogical and practical perspective on end-of-life care, while biologist and activist Jordi Miralles, author of Simplicity and Art in Dying, reflects on the importance of planning one’s funeral ceremony in advance.
Through an interdisciplinary and participatory approach, the project aims to stimulate collective imagination, challenging current structures that disconnect us from natural cycles and reinforce an unnecessary ecological footprint—even in death. At the same time, the installation offers a hopeful vision: a reminder that we can build interdependent communities and more humane ways of facing death.
At the heart of From This Flesh, Flowers Will Bloom is a funerary installation that reinterprets the traditional coffin. The centerpiece is a prototype of an affordable, biodegradable, and sustainable coffin, designed and built in collaboration with Susana Cámara Leret, who leads the Hop Ecologies project. In hop cultivation, brewers use only the flowers, while the remaining stems and leaves are considered waste. This installation repurposes the hop plant to address death as a profoundly ecological and political cycle. We can only truly inhabit the earth if we reconcile with finitude and understand life’s cyclical nature. Our bodies are part of an ongoing material transformation; accepting the body means accepting death, and thus, celebrating the very nature we are a part of.
Fotos de Irene Monteagudo
