Performing Mourning: Laments in Contemporary Art

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Each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint, yet everyone shares a fundamental need for their grief to be witnessed. The pandemic has heightened awareness of life's fragility and the necessity of mourning. Guy Cools, a dramaturg, has researched laments and mourning rituals, focusing on how emotions of loss must be externalized. Laments serve as formal devices across cultures to express and contain grief. Cools explores cultural habits, traditions, and artistic performances in a poetic and personal narrative. He examines various forms of laments—literary, anthropological, philosophical, and contemporary art practices. The latter sections investigate artistic strategies for embodying mourning, including dialogical approaches to personal losses and collective rituals that invite community engagement. Cools highlights contemporary laments that facilitate dialogue with the deceased and connect with loved ones separated by migration or exile. He also addresses a specific mourning process for the unrealized potential of a child's unlived life, including unborn children. Finally, he reflects on the emerging phenomenon of lamenting not only past losses but also the loss of future possibilities.