Ritual/Extinction: The future of death

Angus Hervey is a science communicator, with a background in environmental economics and international political economy. He is the co-founder of Future Crunch, a forum for critical debate on how recent scientific and technological breakthroughs are affecting the way people live and work.

He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, and is also the Australian manager of Random Hacks of Kindness, a global initiative to connect technologists with charities and community groups to ‘hack for humanity.’

Professor Paul Komesaroff is a physician, medical researcher and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, where he is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society.

He is a practising clinician, specialising in the field of endocrinology, and his scientific research work focuses on the effects of hormones on the cardiovascular system.

He is involved in a variety of activities related to ethics in medicine and society. These include his roles as Director of the Clinical Ethics Service at the Alfred Hospital, Ethics Convener of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and Chair of the RACP Expert Advisory Group on Ethics, Executive Director of Global Reconciliation and Chair of the Australian Health and Development Alliance. He has been a member or chair of a number of human research ethics committees continuously for twenty years and is presently the Chair of the HREC of the Baker IDI Heart in Melbourne.

He is involved in a wide range of teaching activities, including supervision of undergraduate ethics teaching in the medical program at Monash University and co-convener of the annual Monash intensive research ethics course. He is engaged in many research and action projects in reconciliation and ethics, which cover clinical practice, public health, global health and research ethics. The projects span a very broad field, including the impact of new technologies on health and society, consent in research, the experience of illness, palliative care and end of life issues, complementary medicines, obesity, psychological effects of trauma, cross-cultural teaching and learning, the nature and impact of foreign aid, and capacity building in global health.

He is a present or past member or chair of a number of committees in professional societies, institutions and government, including the Ethics Advisory Committee of the US Endocrine Society, the Ethics Committee of the Australian Medical Association, the Victorian Justice Health Advisory Committee, the Victorian Department of Human Service Genetics Advisory Committee and Australians Donate. He is a Past President of the Australasian Bioethics Association.

He is the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and Ethics Editor of the Internal Medicine Journal. He is the author of more than 300 articles in science, ethics and philosophy, and author or editor of twelve books, including Experiments in Love and Death (2008), Pathways to Reconciliation: Theory and Practice (2008), Objectivity, Science and Society (1986 and 2009), Drugs in the Health Marketplace (1994), and Sexuality and Medicine: Bodies, Practices, Knowledges (2004). He was convening editor of The Australian Human Research Ethics Handbook (2002).

Wholistic Funeral director, ceremonialist, death doula, jazz singer and death disruptor, Kimba Griffith walks with those facing life’s most immense transitions. As well as supporting people who have lost a person, Kimba works with people facing a life limiting illness, and those seeking to access Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD). Her work also extends to rituals to honour the loss of a body part or organ, and ceremonies to mark other moments of loss or transition. Kimba’s work is informed by both the secular and spiritual paradigms, and she has a particular interest in liminal spaces and places where thresholds must be encountered and reckoned with.

Matthew Lutton is Malthouse Theatre’s artistic director and co-CEO. He has most recently directed for Malthouse Theatre I am a miracle, Night at Bald Mountain, The Bloody Chamber, Dance of Death, Pompeii, L.A., On the Misconception of Oedipus, Die Winterreise, The Trial and Tartuffe.

He has also directed The Mysteries: Genesis and The Duel for Sydney Theatre Company, Love Me Tender for Belvoir/ThinIce, and Don’t Say the Words for Griffin Theatre Company. In 2011 he directed the new contemporary opera Make No Noise for the Bavarian State Opera; in 2012 Strauss’s Elektra for West Australian Opera/ThinIce/Opera Australia, and in 2014 Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman for New Zealand Opera/Opera Queensland.

From 2012 to 2012 Matthew was the director of Perth-based theatre company ThinIce, and from 2012 to 2014 he was an Associate Artist (Direction) for Malthouse Theatre.