ALEX MASCOLO

Her practice-based PhD in Art used participatory and photographic practice to explore ways that food is used to connect with and commemorate the dead within the UK (awarded in 2025, University of Edinburgh). This research used food as a mediator within both participatory and photographic art practices to inform of and reflect upon individual and culturally shaped human behaviours that operate within the wider context of British society. Discussions centred around individual food customs, such childhood memories, familial traditions, and private commemorative practices, providing insight into differing grief experiences. While the development of participatory framed exchanges was used to inform, challenge, and support the work produced, helping to consistently generate new forms of knowledge from new interpretations. While initially used to investigate individual memories and narratives around grief, framed exchanges evolved to reflect the needs of the bereaved participants, becoming supportive, inclusive, and safe spaces where both shared experiences and the sharing of experiences could simultaneously occur. These framed exchanges acknowledge the livings’ relationship with the dead and offer comfort in grief by providing them with the opportunity for their grief narratives and experiences to be recounted, witnessed and validated, thereby offering the potential for healing. In addition to food being used as a catalyst for conversation and providing insight into individual grief experiences it was also been used to visually explore a range of research themes as they arose from theoretical research and participatory interactions. Influenced by both traditional analogue photographic processes and discussions on the importance of personal rituals, photography and image-making became a self-reflexive, ritualised and embodied practice that was used to inform and transform the wider investigation and research process.