Natural Death Centre Awards 1995

The Natural Death Centre International Awards 1995 for the most imaginative projects, announced in London on September 1st 1995, go to the following three schemes:

  • The Internet Garden of Remembrance, the main award-winner. This new World Wide Web Internet project, run by John Hofness and his colleagues at DeathNET, is an imaginative way for a family member or friend to be immortalised in cyberspace, with their obituary kept online and available to be read by anyone in the world with access to a computer and modem, for as many years as wanted. The commemoration of the person can be in multimedia form, including excerpts from home videos, letters, diaries or favourite music. See page 44 for the full details.

  • A collapsible coffin to sling over the shoulder, made in Zimbabwe and called the Box. It does not have wooden sides or a wooden top, just a wooden base which folds down into thirds and a shroud which is attached to the base. This all folds into a bag which can be slung over the shoulder and carried home on a bus.

    It is the custom for the urban breadwinner in Zimbabwe to provide a coffin when a relative dies, and to hire private transport for the occasion as buses will not allow coffins. But with the onslaught of AIDS and thus the new frequency of deaths, this has all become prohibitively expensive. The collapsible Box can be carried on a bus, and besides having potential for a number of developing countries, could perhaps be of slight service in the UK, now that British Rail has a rule against allowing ordinary coffins. Those who feel very Green and who disdain the use of cars could deliver a coffin from an urban shop to rural relatives for use at the funeral, using the train. See page 50 for the full details.

  • Coffins as bookcases are available from the remarkable new shop in Bristol, Heaven on Earth. During your lifetime you can use their coffin 'Embodiment Chest', made to measure by their carpenter, as a bookcase, coffee table or wine rack or for any other storage purpose, and after death it can be used to store you. The shop can help people with green burials and sells everything from cardboard coffins to painted coffins in the shape of motor cars. One day every city will have a shop like this, to rival the less creative French death supermarket chain. See page 50 for full details.

    The 1995 Awards were determined by the directors of The Natural Death Centre and its parent body, the Institute for Social Inventions, from their selection of material sent in by correspondents around the world (although winning schemes had to have some applicability to the UK). Each award winner receives a framed certificate; but as the Centre is a very small charity, only a relatively nominal amount of money accompanies the awards - £100 for the Internet Garden of Remembrance, £50 for the collapsible coffin people and £25 for the Heaven on Earth shop.

    Members of the public are invited to nominate possible future winners.

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