Theory

First Draft:

My research question arises from an instinctive psychological and physical reaction to the loss of my father a few months ago. There was no way I could have explored anything other than what I am feeling, trying to bring out the emotions I experience every day.
Starting from a more open interrogation, which was to question how "we" deal with grief, through my research I came to the conclusion that I had to turn the lens towards myself. This is because I understood that the experience of bereavement is strictly intimate, personal and subject to wide and varied interpretations. Each of us has to face this issue sooner or later, but everyone has their own way of living it.

In the first research phase of my project I came across the book of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross,a Swiss-born psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the book On Death and Dying (1969). In her book she proposes the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Subsequently I found the book "On Grief and Grieving”, co-written by the same author in collaboration with David Kessler, an expert on grief. Their task was to make clear that these stages are not to be considered as a manual, each can be experienced in a casual and non-sequential way, “they are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.”
As part of TED's "How to Deal with Difficult Feelings" series, in the episode curated y Cloe Sasha Brooks, David Kessler talks about his new book “Finding Meaning” defining meaning to be the sixth stage of grief. Among other point he touches on the topic of grief, he also argues that finding meaning is a decision to be willing to live past the traumatic grief in a way that honours what we have lost.
Adrian Paci and Jennifer Loeber both unpacked the topic of grief using art. In the occasion of the exhibition “Mourning. On Loss and Change” at the Hamburger Kunsthalle they explain with a short video their projects.
Adrian Paci’s “Playing with the Pain” is a composition of three video works: Vajtojca (The Mourner), The Guardians and Interregnum. He was attracted by the human need to build a story of fiction or a choreography around traumatic events of our lives. The artist "stages" three different scenes that refer to his imagination and to traditions and funeral ceremonies in Albania, his country of birth. In the opposite way, the artist Jennifer Loeber uses the archiving technique for a project dedicated to her deceased mother, combining an image with a specific object.
In an interview with I had with her, she explained the beneficial effect of art during her process of grieving “Her belongings took on heightened meaning after I spent so much time with them working on this and instead of representing only my loss they now remind me of a very creative period in my life. I certainly didn’t expect that, and I’m so thankful for it.”

I believe these references are relevant to my research. First of all, the reflection on the themes addressed by the theoretical texts led me to elaborate a research question that is not generic but focused on the discovery of my own experience. I think this is fundamental in a research focused on grief processing, as this is an individual and personal process, and not dictated by generic and empirical rules. Secondly, I believe I can draw inspiration from both of the mentioned artistic projects. On the one hand, in the work of Adrian Paci, I find inspiration in staging something that could help me bring my father into the present, fill the void that prevails in me today.
On the other hand, in Jennifer Loeber's project, I recognise a comforting process, which comes natural to me. The idea of creating an archive that helps me keep my father's memory vivid and present.

REFERENCES

EKR Foundation. “Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Biography.” EKR Foundation, www.ekrfoundation.org/elisabeth-kubler-ross. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Grief.com, and David Kessler. “Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler.” Grief.Com, grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Kessler, David, and Cloe Shasha Brooks. “How to Find Meaning after Loss.” TED Talks, 16 June 2021, www.ted.com/talks/david_kessler_how_to_find_meaning_after_loss#t-564642.

“Videos Der Künstler*innen Der Ausstellung »Trauern« | Hamburger Kunsthalle.” Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2020, www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/videos-der-kunstlerinnen-der-ausstellung-trauern.

GRIEF:
from dictionary.com
noun
keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.
a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.

Rewriting definition:
The set of individual phases(which can alternate in an unordered way) and the different emotions experienced by those who go through a loss, a bereavement, a cause of intense distress.
These emotions can have certain psychological and physical effects. Grief is not continuative and doesn’t follow a time-line. One could experience the feeling of handling the grief, but it could also occur to be unexpectedly reminded of your loss.
During a grieving process, it often happens that certain phrases are said that do not help the sufferer to mourn. For example clichés like "You must be strong”(even stronger when directed by the gender stereotype of strong-man), perceived as forcing, attempts to dictate what is instead a personal and intimate process. 

SUFFERING:

PSYCHOLOGYDICTIONARY noun
Feeling of pain or strong stress, either physical or emotional. It can be correlative to the situation, or much higher. It can also be intentionally personally caused. To bear or tolerate something unbearable.

Rewriting definition:
Suffering is not strictly related to pain or stress. It can in fact be manifested in opposite and fluctuating ways, for example through hyper-activity, euphoria. This suffering can have a long or short duration, not in a constant way but appearing randomly. There should be no definition of suffering, as each individual can be pushed to experience it differently according to his or her culture, religion, socialisation.
Suffering can manifest itself on the body, leading those who experience it to even get sick. It can become chronic if not addressed individually and personally. In fact, those who experience it can find a sort of "comfort" in it, even self-provoking it.

BEREAVEMENT:
PSYCHOLOGYDICTIONARY noun
a period of mourning after a loss, especially after the death of a loved one.

Rewriting definition:
Feelings like emptiness or disorientation, following the death of a loved one. Bereavement is not defined by a period and does not follow a logic. In case of bereavement, one can react in varied and disconnected ways. It is possible in fact feel the need to escape from one's emotions, as much as immerse oneself in them.
Bereavement can cause fluctuating depression and is often not fully understood by those who do not experience it. In fact, it happens that the people next to the bereaved person soon forget about everyday emotions and are cynical about them. External expectations of how bereavement is to be experienced, of the timing in which one must react, are often counterproductive and can trigger a feeling of claustrophobia and entrapment on the grieving person. The belief that there is a specific "way" to process a bereavement can often mislead those who experience it.

First Draft
This artistic research is dedicated to those who read but above all to those who can no longer read it.
To all those who have lost someone, who are in mourning and are looking for the most diverse means to do so. To all those who are no longer among us, but who continue to live through our memories and their earthly archives, composed of letters, photographs, voice notes, messages, what remains of material to us, living, to remember who we have lost.
I want to dedicate it to my father, whom I recently lost and whom I want to remember forever.
Facing the emptiness that this absence has left within me is the greatest challenge I have ever faced, a daily challenge, a moment that each of us must face in life, sooner or later.
To my father, who gave me love, affection, moments, from which I inherited not only evident physical characteristics but also, and much more important, passions, perseverance, humor, strength, generosity… The love for music, the great Italian songwriters, ever since he played "La Gatta" by Gino Paoli, outside the house where he lived when I was a child, touching the strings of the classical guitar overlooking the garden. I would like, through this artistic research, to consolidate my memories, cling to them, relive it forever.
With this project of mine I want to address the theme of mourning and emptiness, but celebrating life and the fullness of memories. Experimenting and researching methods to artistically explore what I emotionally live, to give a physical form to what I remember.
How to cope with grief? How do I experience the devastating bereavement of my father?

My research question arises from an instinctive psychological and physical reaction to the loss of my father a few months ago. With this project I aim to honour my father’s memory, what he left in this world, trying to grasp the emotions he aroused in people during his life.
There was no way I could have explored anything other than what I am feeling, trying to bring out the emotions I experience every day.
Starting from a more open interrogation, which was to question how "we" deal with grief, through my research I came to the conclusion that I had to turn the lens towards myself. This is because I understood that the experience of bereavement is strictly intimate, personal and subject to wide and varied interpretations. Each of us has to face this issue sooner or later, but everyone has their own way of living it.
How do I deal with the devastating bereavement for my father?
How to keep his memory alive and honor him? Is there a "manual" of mourning? How do the people next to me who knew and loved him feel? Is there any way to feel my father alive in my present?

In the first research phase of my project I wanted to understand if there was a way, a manual, some educational material that guided people through grieving their loved ones.
I came across the researches of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross,a Swiss-born psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the book On Death and Dying (1969). In her book she proposes the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Subsequently I found the book "On Grief and Grieving”, co-written by the same author in collaboration with David Kessler, an expert on grief. Their task was to make clear that these stages are not to be considered as a manual, each can be experienced in a casual and non-sequential way, “they are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.”
As part of TED's "How to Deal with Difficult Feelings" series, in the episode curated by Cloe Sasha Brooks, David Kessler talks about his new book “Finding Meaning” defining meaning to be the sixth stage of grief. Among other point he touches on the topic of grief, he also argues that finding meaning is a decision to be willing to live past the traumatic grief in a way that honours what we have lost.
After this first research phase I started doubting on the real application of these phases in the moment of mourning. I then contacted two experts who, after suffering mourning for the death of their child during childbirth, started an online platform to unpack more deeply the topic of what one feels individually during mourning. After the interview with them I confirmed what I already thought. The stages of mourning are something that those who truly mourn do not perceive. What is acceptance? It is something that is experienced intermittently from the preparatory stage of death. I have come to the conclusion that these phases of grief are more of a David Kessler trademark than a useful educative manual for those who live these dramatic experiences.
Continuing my research from a practical point of view, I found inspiration in two multimedia artists.
Adrian Paci and Jennifer Loeber both unpacked the topic of grief using art. In the occasion of the exhibition “Mourning. On Loss and Change” at the Hamburger Kunsthalle they explain with a short video their projects.
Adrian Paci’s “Playing with the Pain” is a composition of three video works: Vajtojca (The Mourner), The Guardians and Interregnum. He was attracted by the human need to build a story of fiction or a choreography around traumatic events of our lives. The artist "stages" three different scenes that refer to his imagination and to traditions and funeral ceremonies in Albania, his country of birth. In the opposite way, the artist Jennifer Loeber uses the archiving technique for a project dedicated to her deceased mother, combining an image with a specific object.
In an interview with I had with her, she explained the beneficial effect of art during her process of grieving “Her belongings took on heightened meaning after I spent so much time with them working on this and instead of representing only my loss they now remind me of a very creative period in my life. I certainly didn’t expect that, and I’m so thankful for it.”

I believe these references are relevant to my research. First of all, the reflection on the themes addressed by the theoretical texts led me to elaborate a research question that is not generic but focused on the discovery of my own experience. I think this is fundamental in a research focused on grief processing, as this is an individual and personal process, and not dictated by generic and empirical rules. Secondly, I believe I can draw inspiration from both of the mentioned artistic projects. On the one hand, in the work of Adrian Paci, I find inspiration in staging something that could help me bring my father into the present, fill the void that prevails in me today.
On the other hand, in Jennifer Loeber's project, I recognise a comforting process, which comes natural to me. The idea of creating an archive that helps me keep my father's memory vivid and present.

To develop my project I will use photography and audio recording exploring two different ways of using these techniques. The first, as previously anticipated is an archival research. I am collecting images, voice messages extrapolated from conversations with my father, and recorded songs that he would send to me and my family when he was alive. Secondly, I will produce new materials by photographing and interviewing people that were close to him, starting rom my relatives and expanding to neighbours, friends or people in whom he has left an indelible mark.
I aim to relieve my pain, honour my father's life and underline his presence, while not physical, living what I hope will be a cathartic experience that will help me bring my father into my life again.

REFERENCES

EKR Foundation. “Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Biography.” EKR Foundation, www.ekrfoundation.org/elisabeth-kubler-ross. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Grief.com, and David Kessler. “Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler.” Grief.Com, grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Kessler, David, and Cloe Shasha Brooks. “How to Find Meaning after Loss.” TED Talks, 16 June 2021, www.ted.com/talks/david_kessler_how_to_find_meaning_after_loss#t-564642.

“Videos Der Künstler*innen Der Ausstellung »Trauern« | Hamburger Kunsthalle.” Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2020, www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/videos-der-kunstlerinnen-der-ausstellung-trauern.

Final Draft

My research question arises from an instinctive psychological and physical reaction to the loss of my father a few months ago. With this project I aim to honour my father’s memory, what he left in this world, trying to grasp the emotions he aroused in people during his life.
There was no way I could have explored anything other than what I am feeling, trying to bring out the emotions I experience every day.
Starting from a more open interrogation, which was to question how "we" deal with grief, through my research I came to the conclusion that I had to turn the lens towards myself. This is because I understood that the experience of bereavement is strictly intimate, personal and subject to wide and varied interpretations. Each of us has to face this issue sooner or later, but everyone has their own way of living it.
How do I deal with the devastating bereavement for my father?
How to keep his memory alive and honor him? Is there a "manual" of mourning? How do the people next to me who knew and loved him feel? Is there any way to feel my father alive in my present?

The five stages of grief, introduced to the world by the sociologist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, are popularly used as a manual for grieving, although many discussions are arising on the veracity and possibility of application of these phases.
The stages appear as stepping stones and a model to be followed, but people with lived experience go through a more vaste range of emotions which doesn’t follow a chronological and dictated order. Furthermore, these phases are now frequently applied also to commercial and economic models, a fact that totally alters their meaning.
Are these five stages of grief becoming more of a trademark than an educational or guidance tool?
The sixth step, first enunciated by David Kessler, the step of meaning finding is perhaps the step that is more relevant to me as a creative, as it is singular and highly subjective. For a lot of artists meaning making came through art, as using their art, their practice to deepen and research a theme such as mourning, a theme that is as familiar as it is foreign to all of us, is the most immediate answer.

Adrian Paci and Jennifer Loeber both unpacked the topic of grief using art.
Adrian Paci’s “Playing with the Pain” is a composition of three video works: Vajtojca (The Mourner), The Guardians and Interregnum. He was attracted by the human need to build a story of fiction or a choreography around traumatic events of our lives. The artist "stages" three different scenes that refer to his imagination and to traditions and funeral ceremonies in Albania, his country of birth.
In the opposite way, the artist Jennifer Loeber uses the archiving technique for a project dedicated to her deceased mother, combining an image with a specific object.
The artist explains during an interview that spending time reworking photographs and objects related to her grief has changed the way of living and seeing these archive materials, recalling rather the period of creativity that these objects have inspired than the pain they cause her.

The research and subsequent project rely heavily on my personal experience as grief processing cannot be dictated by generic and empiric rules applied to any person.
To explore what grief means to me and how I am living along with it, I use photography and audio recording investigating the effects of two different ways of using these techniques.
The first, as previously anticipated, is an archival research. I am collecting images, letters, voice messages extrapolated from conversations with my father, and recorded songs that he would send to me and my family when he was alive. Secondly, I am producing new materials by photographing and interviewing people that were close to him, starting from my relatives and expanding to neighbours, friends or people in whom he has left an indelible mark.
I aim to relieve my pain, honour my father's life and underline his presence, while not physical, living what I hope will be a cathartic experience that will help me bring my father into my life again.

REFERENCES

EKR Foundation. “Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Biography.” EKR Foundation, www.ekrfoundation.org/elisabeth-kubler-ross. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Grief.com, and David Kessler. “Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler.” Grief.Com, grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Kessler, David, and Cloe Shasha Brooks. “How to Find Meaning after Loss.” TED Talks, 16 June 2021, www.ted.com/talks/david_kessler_how_to_find_meaning_after_loss#t-564642.

“Videos Der Künstler*innen Der Ausstellung »Trauern« | Hamburger Kunsthalle.” Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2020, www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/videos-der-kunstlerinnen-der-ausstellung-trauern.

Final Draft with MLA citations
GRIEF
noun
keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.
a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.

The set of individual phases(which can alternate in an unordered way) and the different emotions experienced by those who go through a loss, a bereavement, a cause of intense distress.
These emotions can have certain psychological and physical effects. Grief is not continuative and doesn’t follow a time-line. One could experience the feeling of handling the grief, but it could also occur to be unexpectedly reminded of your loss. The phases, defined by the sociologist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. One more stage has been added by David Kessler which is Meaning. Lately, the correctness and the existence of these phases is being discussed. Will Daddario, an internationally recognized scholar, teacher, and public speaker who works with the topic of grief, explained during an interview that these stages have become the trademark of David Kessler. He underlined the fact that the phases have been applied in ways that have nothing to do with real grief, such as the discomfort Apple customers felt when the iPhone changed design. The way in which one perceives bereavement is certainly influenced by many factors, educational, religious, and can vary according to one's gender and age.
During a grieving process, it often happens that the societal expectations do not help the sufferer to mourn. For example clichés like "You must be strong”(even stronger when directed by the gender stereotype of strong-man), perceived as forcing, attempts to dictate what is instead a personal and intimate process. 

SUFFERING
noun
Feeling of pain or strong stress, either physical or emotional. It can be correlative to the situation, or much higher. It can also be intentionally personally caused. To bear or tolerate something unbearable.

Suffering is not strictly related to pain or stress. It can in fact be manifested in opposite and fluctuating ways, for example through hyper-activity, euphoria. This suffering can have a long or short duration, not in a constant way but appearing randomly. There should be no definition of suffering, as each individual can be pushed to experience it differently according to his or her culture, religion, socialisation, age, gender…
Suffering can manifest itself on the body, leading those who experience it to even get sick. It can become chronic if not addressed individually and personally. In fact, those who experience it can find a sort of "comfort" in it, even provoking it to themselves or drowning into it.
The intensity and temporality of the feeling of sufferance is extremely personal. It can also lead the person to need extreme and drastic changes to regain enthusiasm in life, becoming a cathartic experience in some way.

BEREAVEMENT
noun
a period of mourning after a loss, especially after the death of a loved one.

Feelings like emptiness or disorientation, following the death of a loved one. Bereavement is not defined by a period and does not follow a logic. In case of bereavement, one can react in varied and disconnected ways. It is possible in fact feel the need to escape from one's emotions, as much as immerse oneself in them.
Bereavement can cause fluctuating depression and is often not fully understood by those who do not experience it. In fact, it happens that the people next to the bereaved person soon forget about everyday emotions and are cynical about them. External expectations of how bereavement is to be experienced, of the timing in which one must react, are often counterproductive and can trigger a feeling of claustrophobia and entrapment on the grieving person. The belief that there is a specific "way" to process a bereavement can often mislead those who experience it.
The way in which bereavement is lived is often influenced by religion. However, religious practices can be perceived as a stretch, creating a "detachment" from living the experience in a personal, intimate way, thus leaving a sort of trauma, an unbridgeable void, in the person who lives these moments.

1 Graham. “- Free Online.” Psychology Dictionary, 5 Nov. 2021, psychologydictionary.org.

2 Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, On Death and Dying , 1969, Macmillan, New York

3 Kessler, David, and Cloe Shasha Brooks. “How to Find Meaning after Loss.” TED Talks, 16 June 2021, www.ted.com/talks/david_kessler_how_to_find_meaning_after_loss.

4 McVean, Ada. “It’s Time to Let the Five Stages of Grief Die.” Office for Science and Society [Montreal, Quebec], 31 May 2019, www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-history/its-time-let-five-stages-grief-die# %7E:text=Introduced%20to%20the%20world%20in,denial%20and%20ending%20with%20acceptance.

5 Salini, Costanza, et al. “On Grief and Bereavement, Interview With Will and Joanne Daddario.” Youtube, uploaded by Costanza Salini, 10 Nov. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzs2yE4noYg&t=2996s.

6 Graham. “- Free Online.” Psychology Dictionary, 5 Nov. 2021, psychologydictionary.org.

7 Graham. “- Free Online.” Psychology Dictionary, 5 Nov. 2021, psychologydictionary.org.

Final Draft
This artistic research is dedicated to those who read but above all to those who can no longer read it. 
To all those who have lost someone, who are in mourning and are looking for the most diverse means to do so. To all those who are no longer among us, but who continue to live through our memories and their earthly archives, composed of letters, photographs, voice notes, messages, memories, what remains of material to us, living, to remember who we have lost. 
I want to dedicate it to my father, whom I recently lost and whom I want to remember forever. 
Facing the emptiness that this absence has left within me is the greatest challenge I have ever faced, a daily challenge, a moment that each of us must face in life, sooner or later. 
To my father, who gave me love, affection, from which I inherited not only evident physical characteristics but also, and much more important, passions, perseverance, humor, strength, generosity… The love for music that we would share, for the great Italian songwriters, ever since he played "La Gatta" by Gino Paoli, in the garden of the house where he lived during my childhood. I would like, through this artistic research, to consolidate my memories, cling to them, relive it forever. 
With this project I want to address the theme of mourning and emptiness while still celebrating life and the fullness of memories. Experimenting and researching methods to artistically explore what I emotionally live, to give a physical form to what I remember. 
How to cope with grief? How do I experience the devastating bereavement of my father? 
I want to question the "structure" of the grieving process, the “grieving formulas” embodied by the very theoretical concept of "the five stages of grief", exposing the fact that these are not models that are empirically applicable to everyone.  I want to highlight that in the capitalist system there is no real education and no real room for grieving, while trying to make my own.  