Living with the Dead: Sensorial Connections and Ongoing Love

Through ethnographic encounters and personal experiences, we have come to recognize that many people continue to feel a strong connection to those who have passed. This awareness invites a deeper understanding of how the death of a loved one may create a rupture in the relationship—but not necessarily a disconnection. Even after death, a contact can endure and remain vividly felt.

In this presentation, we share sonic and visual glimpses into the sensorial, subtle, and intimate ways people connect with their departed loved ones—or continue to feel the resonance of their presence. At times, this takes the form of deliberate acts of reaching out; at others, it emerges through a quiet sense of being reached for.

A butterfly. An embrace. The sound of footsteps in a garden.

The ways of experiencing the presence of the dead are multiple.

We are wondering:

Do certain places, landscapes, or moments hold the capacity for the living and the dead to connect—or even coexist in some way?

What might we learn about truly attending to other beings – both human and nonhuman – by opening ourselves to the ephemeral ways those who are no longer living may still be present?

And what might we rediscover about love and loss by attuning to the relationships that continue between the living and the dead?