Queen Victoria Gardens

A taboo-breaking space for the death-curious

Expiry D8 is a meeting place for liberating conversations and inspiring new attitudes about death-care. We’re inviting the death-curious for two evenings of transformative conversation, connection and art immersion.

At the heart of the event is a speed-dating style experience inspired by Swiss Sociologist Bernard Crettaz’s ‘Cafés Mortels’, where death doulas and industry advocates facilitate conversation table-to-table about end-of-life, contemporary memorialisation, funerary rites and rituals.

Performative interludes will provide moments of pause including the debut of “Beckon”—a spirit-honouring sonic installation by artists Carla Zimbler and Tilman Robinson, illuminated by bedside lamps from deceased estates.

This intimate event has limited capacity, so if you’re interested in participating, please complete the expression of interest form below. It’s all about breaking the silence and having more meaningful conversations about the inevitable.

Lead Facilitators

Carla Zimbler

Carla bends light across architectural surfaces and soaks sculptural forms in vivid textures as a live performative experience and meditation on existence. Carla seeks to build conduits and connective passageways between physical x spiritual boundaries through hypnotic colour and transformative symbolism. As a gateway to the otherworldly and the afterlife, Carla’s multimodal installations examine ephemerality, transitional states, extrasensory perception and contemporary memorialisation. Audiences are drawn into immersive spaces where luminous phenomena expands, exhales and dissolves as expressions of grief.

Carla’s visual work has been featured at Sydney Opera House, National Gallery of Australia, Arts House, Melbourne Recital Centre, ACMI, VIVID, World Pride Sydney and Reykjavík Winter Lights Festival.

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Annie Whitlocke
Annie is an experienced and compassionate End of Life Doula, offering expert advice on death care options, sitting vigil, alternative rituals and proactive advocacy for the dying and their people. Annie is also a Pet Death Doula, a Pastoral Care and Buddhist Chaplain at Monash Hospital and the Director and Team Leader for Social Health Australia. Additionally, Annie serves as a Palliative Liaison Coordinator for the Buddhist Council of Victoria, is a qualified mindfulness practitioner, and has served as part of the advisory committee for the VIC State Government Palliative Care Clinical Insight Committee. Annie enjoys laughter, adores all animals, and values being prepared for the unexpected.

Collaborators

Sarah Walker
Sarah’s work uses humour and disrupted narrative to create surprising encounters with tensions around death, disaster and catastrophe. She works with immersive binaural sound works, video and text-based installation, participatory performance and theatre. Recent commissions include works for Blindside, Platform Arts, Chamber Made, Experimenta, The Unconformity and NGV. Sarah is also a current PhD candidate at RMIT. Sarah has trained as a death doula and is particularly interested in using art and medical knowledge to attend to the complexities and possibilities inherent in and around death.

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Tilman Robinson
Tilman Robinson is a composer, producer and sound designer. He creates maximalist electro-acoustic and dark ambient music drawing on a wide range of genres. Tilman’s diverse output focuses on the psychological impact of dense sound incorporating acousmatics and psychoacoustic principles. Tilman has received major work commissions from genre diverse sources and accolades including nominations for the Melbourne Prize in 2016 & 2019. From 2019-21 he was the Artistic Associate of Australian experimental music group, Speak Percussion. He has released three solo albums including CULTURECIDE on Icelandic label Bedroom Community.

Learn more

Expiry D8 is presented with the support of Chamber Made.