Pogingen tot afscheid | Tranen van Goud

There are many rituals for dealing with grief after death. But what if the grief already starts before death? Especially with mental or physical illnesses, the grieving process already starts before death. As Marli Huijer, Thinker of the Fatherland wrote, “In the way of saying goodbye lies the seed for how we look back on it for the rest of our lives”.

Rituals can help with mourning before death, but while on an individual level these are sometimes made, we lack a shared Dutch, or even universal image of what such a ritual could be. In Attempts to Farewell, we do just that.

We attempt to imagine something that could support an approaching death. Attempts at Farewell is a balance between rituals, actions, stories, monologues and dialogues, within which the viewer may feel free to move between the role of spectator and the role of participant in a ritual.

We invite everyone to be there. To participate. To be present with a possibility of what things could look like.