THE GOOD GRIEF COLLECTIVE
ART (GER & NED) Anne and Stefanie explore death as an overlooked design frontier –blending grief, art, and innovation to rethink how we remember, mourn, and say goodbye.
Anne is a sociologist, grief coach, death doula, and experience innovation consultant. She works at the intersection of grief, art, and collective practice, creating spaces where grieving can be explored as a living process rather than something to “get over.” She believes deeply in the power of art, expression, and togetherness to make grief more human.
Stefanie is a trend researcher and innovation strategist who has spent the last six years asking the question nobody else in the room wants to ask: how do we design for death?
Since 2019, she has been researching how contemporary culture is radically reimagining the end of life – on her platform Good Grief and in advisory work with companies across Europe and the US. From burial rituals going circular and cemeteries becoming urban parks, to the impossible tangle of your digital afterlife: this space is changing fast, and designers are already shaping it, often without knowing it.
In this joint keynote, Anne and Stefanie explore death as an overlooked design frontier.
Anne shares how she and her husband, designer Eike König, created new objects, rituals, and ceremonies to weave their stillborn daughter Coco into their ongoing lives. Stefanie presents emerging shifts in memorial design, digital legacy, and the evolving death economy.
If design shapes how we live, it also shapes how we grieve.
If we can design seamless digital ecosystems and smart cities, surely we can design more human ways to say goodbye.
Anne & Stefanie will speak at Forward Festival Berlin.
Image 1, 4, 8, 9 ©Anna Rose
Image 10 ©Natalie Stanczak
