This twenty-year research moves from the intention to document and promote new individual and social practices about death. In 2021 it merged into a book: “The art of dying (and living)”, published by Skira. The scope is that of iconology, cultural anthropology, psychodynamic art therapy and aesthetics. I have selected works of art that represent death in peaceful ways, from prehistoric times to today, to think of it outside the category of the macabre that has imposed itself for several centuries and that takes away the possibility of experiencing it as a natural event.
Some elements underlying the persistent taboo that Western society feeds towards death require a creative journey to discover one’s relationship with it, which begins with how we think about the general reality on a daily basis. In fact, we are often imprisoned by mental and postural functions that distance us from the more general order of nature and prevent us from accepting the limit as a necessary and even creative dimension.