Sharing the Highlights of Your Life — Creating Your Visual Obituary
In this session, we explore the topic of life stories and share what we know about writing obituaries. We learn about creating visual obituaries and use a variety of questions to spark memories. We’ll discuss different ways to design visual obituaries and talk about our experiences with the prompts. There will be time in the session to begin creating our visuals. We will conclude by coming together to share our creations and experiences with this life-affirming process.
Even before we gather for our session, you will receive questions to spark ideas, unearth memories, and help you to gather materials for the work and play of creating your visual obituary.
Objectives
- Get to know each other (just a bit!)
- Share and discuss what we know about memory collecting
- Decide for whom we are making this visual
- Offer ideas about choosing what to share
- Explore how we want to share the important moments in our lives
- Review questions that invite us to think deeply about meaningful events and people in our lives
- Work with our supplies and tools to create our visuals
- Discuss our impressions of the making of the visuals
- Share our creations in the group
- Reflect on our experiences with the processes used to create our visuals
Format
The session will be very interactive, with participants answering and asking questions in the large group, working together and sharing in breakout groups creating their own visual obituaries, and reflecting on their work and play, and the experience.
Supporting material
Please have these materials at the ready for our time together:
- Large format paper, posterboard, and/or cardboard (18 x 24 or 24 x 36 inches), or applications such as Procreate, Photoshop or Miro, Mural, etc.
- Photos, Mementos, birth certificates, diplomas, recipes, writings, etc.
- Scissors
- Glue/GlueStick
- Miscellaneous items: Fabric, Markers, etc.
Accompanying material: ZPI - Sharing Your Favorite Memories Through Creating a Visual Obituary
Professional bio
Meet a few members of VEOLI (Visualizing End of Life Issues) a group of visual practitioners and facilitators who believe passionately in a world where every person can be prepared for their end-of-life so that every day can be lived to the fullest.
Jill Greenbaum will facilitate the interactive session. She is a visual storyteller and story catcher with a special interest in end-of-life planning and care. Over two years ago she began offering workshops in which people reflect on their lives, choose what they wish to memorialize, and create visual obituaries. The experiences have been opportunities for deep reflection, a range of emotions, and the creation of very personal and beautiful pieces. After a career in education and then directing programs for survivors of sexual violence, she currently teaches visual thinking skills to learners around the world. Jill is completing her first year in the Upaya Zen Center Chaplaincy Program.