the story of loneliness
March 2018 | In collaboration with Maxime Wijnant & Jim Van Den Sande
This campaign, designed for the ‘Festival of Loneliness’ of Eenzame Uitvaart is created to raise awareness for unmarked and unseen loneliness.
Eenzame Uitvaart is a foundation that offers a dignified and respectful farewell to the deceased, with a lack of family, friends or social network. Poets write a proper goodbye-poem to read at the funeral after visiting the house of the lonely deceased. The vision of Eenzame Uitvaart is that every person is worth thinking about and deserves to be buried with words specially chosen for them.
In Holland 1.5 million people are lonely. Many of these unnoticed people die in complete solitude every year.
The furniture of these people, which normally ends up being a valuable heritage for the remaining family or friends ends up being valueless furniture, in this situation. It’s sold to a second-hand store or gets thrown away.
This project gave the furniture a valuable purpose again. To tell the story of their died in solitude owner to literally make the problem visual and existing on the streets, instead of hidden behind closed doors.
Photographed by Pelin Turfanda at Checkpoint Charlie, Nassaukade, Amsterdam
Some of the small pieces of furniture were chosen to tell the story of their lonely passed away owner. These conversation pieces were placed in cafés nearby the locations of where people died in solitude. This offline campaign is designed to raise awareness amongst local residents of the city.
