Marietta Radomska has a lively interest in death

Marietta Radomska is a surprising researcher. She researches death and grief but is lively and full of passion for what she does. She is currently running a project on ecological grief at Linköping University, Sweden. Somewhere she nurtures a hope to change the world.

There are many good reasons to take an interest in death, according to Marietta Radomska. Firstly, it has not been sufficiently explored. Yet it is constantly present in our lives, not least through all the crises in the world.

But for her, the interest began with a great commitment to living things – and to art.

“As a doctoral student, I investigated how certain types of contemporary art challenge our philosophical understanding of what life is. Then it became clear to me that current research doesn’t handle the problem of death well enough.”

This made her start thinking about our ideas about death. Whose death counts in our society? When is it okay to mourn someone or something that has been lost? Is there death that we do not want to or cannot see because it is not valued? Is there grief that is not taken seriously?

Marietta Radomska is a philosopher and interdisciplinary researcher in environmental humanities at Tema Genus (Gender Studies) at Linköping University.

In her ongoing research, she devotes much time to studying how the theme of death and grief is portrayed in modern cultural expressions, contemporary art and popular science.

“Death as a concept is constantly present in Western culture, but it’s mostly about human death, and not even all people’s deaths are equal,” she says.

But in the light of human-made climate change, war and social injustice, is there perhaps reason to critically examine what we take for granted? Are there other ways to look at death and how we value it? And what consequences would this have on our way of life?

These questions are asked in a growing field of research called queer death studies. Marietta Radomska is the co-founder of an international network in this area.

The ongoing crises require us to reflect on our ideas of life and death, according to her. Humans are not above what is happening. Health and life opportunities are affected. Many feel grief and loss when landscapes are destroyed, or animal species disappear. Marietta Radomska calls this ecological grief.

This is also a theme in the research project she is currently leading, which bears the name Ecological Grief, Crisis Imaginaries and Resilience in a Nordic light. The starting point is the acute environmental crisis in Northern and Central Europe, but mainly in the Baltic Sea. What impact does the crisis have on culture and popular science in the Baltic Sea countries? How is grief expressed and how is it handled? The research will also result in a theory of how ecological grief can be understood as a phenomenon.

“Investigating ecological grief can help us better understand how we relate to our environment and to other beings. It says something about us as humans in the world we live in,” says Marietta Radomska.

Similar research has previously been done among indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia. In the Nordic countries, this has so far been a rare occurrence. Here, climate anxiety is a more common topic. According to Marietta Radomska, ecological grief has not been taken seriously or even recognised by society. Therefore, it was remarkable when the Church of Sweden, in conjunction with an environmental summit a couple of years ago, actually organised a mass for extinct species.

Marietta Radomska works hard to extend this research discussion outside the university walls, through seminars, panel discussions, social media and national and international collaborations, with the objective of contributing to the UN’s global sustainability goals, especially those related to strengthening ecosystems and biodiversity and combating climate change.

She herself believes in upgrading the right of animals, nature and landscapes to exist. She believes in making humans more humble and more aware of their dependence on both the human and non-human. Research can make us more aware of the values that govern our choices and actions, according to her.

“I believe that by discussing more, we can help people to take a stand. Even though I’m not so sure sometimes, I’m optimistic that it will be possible!”

FACTS:

Marietta Radomska

Associate Professor in Environmental Humanities, Docent and Head of Unit at Tema Genus (Gender Studies), Founding Director of The Eco- and Bioart Lab, LiU.

Born in 1984 in Poland.

Educated at the University of Poznan, the University of Burgundy, the University of Utrecht