Dead and Alive - a long-term documentary project and reference archive dedicated to the visual documentation of death rituals around the world.

My interest in death did not begin as a project. It began through personal encounters with death and loss, and through an awareness of my own fear of death. Growing up in a culture where death is rarely spoken about, this fear was never openly addressed, but instead left unexamined.

In Denmark, death is often hidden. It is handled quietly, privately, and at a distance. Over time, I became aware that this silence was not universal. In many parts of the world, death is present, visible, and deeply integrated into social and cultural life.

This realisation became the starting point for Dead and Alive, an ongoing documentary archive dedicated to the visual documentation of death rituals around the world.

Why Death Rituals Exist

Death rituals exist in every known society. Whether expressed through burial, cremation, mourning ceremonies, exhumation rituals, or ancestor traditions, these practices serve fundamental human needs, and help individuals and communities to:

• acknowledge death as a transition
• create structure during grief
• maintain continuity between generations
• express belief systems and cosmologies
• define cultural identity through shared ritual

Death rituals are not only about the dead. They reflect how societies understand life, responsibility, memory, and belonging.

Another central motivation behind this project is to explore how death rituals often reflect life itself. Through a wide range of death and burial rituals, the work offers insight into how different cultures’ values, hopes, and beliefs are mirrored in their ideas about death and the afterlife — and how differently human societies care for and relate to their dead.

Funeral Rituals and Death Ceremonies Around the World

Dead and Alive documents funeral rituals from a wide range of cultural and religious contexts. Some ceremonies are private and restrained. Others are collective events involving entire communities over days, weeks, or even years.

Over more than fifteen years, I have documented death-related rituals in countries including Greenland, Haiti, Guatemala, Romania, Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal, India, Ghana, Israel, Finland, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Denmark.

The forms vary widely, but the function remains consistent: to help the living navigate loss and to situate death within a cultural framework.

Each series within the archive focuses on a specific ritual, tradition, or social context and contributes to a broader understanding of how death is handled across cultures.

What Happens After Death in Different Cultures

A central aspect of death rituals is belief. Not only in what happens to the body, but in what follows after death.

In some traditions, death marks a final separation. In others, it represents a transition into an ancestral or spiritual realm, where the dead continue to influence the living.

Many cultures maintain ongoing relationships with the deceased through remembrance rituals, offerings, periodic ceremonies, or physical encounters with the remains. These beliefs shape how the dead are treated, how mourning unfolds, and how death is integrated into everyday life.

Documenting Death as a Long-Term Study

Dead and Alive is a long-term documentary commitment based on sustained fieldwork, cultural access, and repeated engagement over time.

The archive is built slowly and continuously, with respect for local customs and an emphasis on context rather than spectacle.

The aim is to create a serious reference resource for those interested in:

• death rituals and funeral traditions
• cultural responses to mortality
• anthropological perspectives on death
• documentary photography as long-term study

New ritual series are added over time, expanding the archive and strengthening its role as a global reference hub.

This page serves as the central entry point to individual ritual series within Dead and Alive, including:

• Ma’nene Ceremony – Tana Toraja, Indonesia
• Lang Pa Cha Ritual – Thailand
• Figurative Coffins of the Ga People – Ghana
• Famadihana (Turning of the Bones) – Madagascar
• Living with the Dead – Manila North Cemetery, Philippines