Design Map · Eindhoven
Dead, Holding Hands
Graduation project by Alicja Wawryn at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
Dead, Holding Hands' is a collection of ceramic urns which can be connected in a gesture of kinship. The system of urns imagines how burials could be approached achieving peace, respect, beauty, warmth, in the face of something as dark, cold and lonely as death. Made of collected clay soil, the unglazed pieces suggest a family reunion, holding hands and dancing together, reflecting on the deceased person's sense of home and belonging. Designer Alicja Wawryn questions what resting in peace could mean and responds by pointing towards community and an integral aspect of mourning. The urns display togetherness by referencing movements in traditional Polish folkloric dance and are connectable through a gesture of touch. The urns’ aesthetics combine shapes of Bronze Age urns from the Pomerania region with the wish to break the prevailing taboos around death, and emphasise kinship as an element that brings mourners together. At the cemetery, they are still holding hands.