Are cemeteries evolving into lively social hubs?

Cemeteries have long been seen as quiet places of reflection, but changing mourning practices are redefining them as spaces not only for the dead.

“Above ground, a cemetery is also a place for the living,” says Christian Jäger, managing director of a funeral directors’ association in Germany.

In many places, park-like grounds serve as a green lung for city microclimates. And, much more is possible, says the undertakers’ association, though within reasonable limits.

Although burial grounds are still in a “deep sleep,” recreational activities and social events in cemeteries are becoming more common in some countries.

In Scandinavian countries, an urban planning case study notes that there is growing interest in transforming urban cemeteries into recreational spaces.

The study based on interviews in Norway and Sweden shows that while quiet activities like strolling or sitting are widely accepted, views are divided on more active uses such as jogging or dog-walking.

Cultural and religious backgrounds, personal intent and cemetery design all shape what’s seen as respectful, it reports.

In Germany, some municipalities are setting up mobile cafés in cemeteries. Once a month, around 20 people meet for a chat in the centre of one graveyard in Rheine, near the Dutch border.

“Talking, laughing, exchanging ideas – these are things you can also do in a cemetery,” says Anna Held, pastoral officer at the Catholic parish in the Eschendorf district.

The programme brings people together who would otherwise only visit their loved ones’ graves in silent mourning, she says.

New understandings of grief suggest that, unlike traditional Western approaches that tend to sever ties, people now seek to maintain their bonds with the deceased and integrate their memory into life even in their absence.

Many cultures worldwide have ways of mourning that openly view death as a part of life worth celebrating. For example, Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” is celebrated annually as families honour and remember deceased loved ones with music and festivities.

Spaces and rituals of remembrance are changing too

Some graveyards are staging events with music and illuminations. In Germany’s Dusseldorf, an All Saints’ Day event allowed mourners visiting the city’s North Cemetery to experience the space as a cultural centre and natural setting in the midst of the city.

Features included folk and jazz music, trees and gravestones lit up in bright colours plus a torchlight tour.

A variety of colours and creativity are also playing a growing role in funerals. “One thing we have been observing for some years now is that farewells are becoming much more colourful,” Jäger says. Often, while they are alive, people are deciding how they want to be bid farewell, he says.

“Guests are sometimes coming to the funeral service dressed in bright colourful clothing.”

Others are staging ceremonies in different spaces, says Marie Thiermann from the Lebenslicht funeral parlour in Dusseldorf – which translates as life light. “Most of the time, life is colourful and diverse” she says, so the farewell service and funeral should be no different.

Urns and coffins can be painted in bright colours. People have organized what Thiermann calls the “celebration of life” at a zoo, in a pub or in an indoor riding arena.

There need be no bounds to the creativity involved, she says, “whether we use the earth from the cemetery, sawdust from grandpa’s workshop or confetti to commemorate the deceased carnival organizer.”

The gravesite itself can also be colourful. “Leaves in the wind” is one type of burial that is made possible at the cemetery in Würselen near Aachen.

It involves colourful glass leaves that can be inscribed with the name of the deceased and float on a frame made of thin stainless steel tubes. The deceased are buried under the leaf installation in a communal urn grave.

A new trend? Digital QR code on gravestone

There are many ways to say goodbye, not only at a graveyard but also online. “We have become a very dispersed society,” says Jäger. Often, these days, people are choosing to celebrate a hybrid farewell, such as through a mourning site online where family and friends can upload photos or a film.

One unusual gravestone has a QR code inscribed on it after TV presenter and science journalist Jean Pütz told several media outlets that he wanted his gravestone to have a code people could scan to see a video he recorded a few years ago.

His is not the only one equipped for digital-savvy visitors. Inventor Heinz Kunert’s grave in Cologne’s Melaten Cemetery also has a QR code that provides information about his life.

Jäger had never seen a QR code on a gravestone before but says what is increasingly common is for people to plan and select their funeral service, burial and resting place during their lives.

That shows “death is no longer a taboo subject,” he says.