As experiences of loss and change escalate, a long-standing taboo in Western societies starts to crumble: Death is trending.

Meanwhile, AI is reshaping how we relate to ourselves and others: it creates what Esther Perel calls “artificial intimacy”, fuels techno-solutionist dreams of digital immortality, and tethers our imagination to linear progress.

Death doulas challenge forever-promises and support the whole person at the end of a naturally messy, increasingly hybrid life.

Artists and feminist thinkers interrupt extractive systems by offering stories of mutual care, regeneration and relational power.

We bring together perspectives from end-life-care, feminist economics, AI discourse, comic-essay-based artistic research, and leadership development to explore what death can offer us if we dare to face it.

Session image: "The Ballad of Bluebeard, Barb and the Bbbbs", Doc J Snyder, CC BY-ND 4.0