We are all going to die - so why not talk about it? Dying. an event series, explores death through the lens of design and art, running during the DesignTO Festival.

Dying. is in fact about living, living with the human experience of dying; What aren’t we talking about? What matters at end-of-life? Bringing together perspectives from families, caregivers, clinicians, and research to spark public conversation through community creation and interactive experiences. The series invites us to think about our relationship with death and dying as an individual, a member of a family, social network and as a human being in society. Let’s get comfortable with the uncomfortable and start talking about what truly matters.

Meet Our Team

MARIA CHEUNG

Co-Curator

Maria is a public health, health policy and program professional bringing over a decade of experience in government and academia. She is also the founder of Taboo Health, an emerging platform, community and creative consultancy for public health to collaborate with the creative sector. Currently a policy maker in acute care and a lifelong public health nerd (MPH) specializing in socio-behavioural health and healing. She is passionate about health communications, health promotion and systems design with the creative sector to advance public discourse that cultivates healthcare culture and collective healing.

​She is endlessly fascinated by the transformative nature of the beautiful, awkward and uncomfortable spaces felt in between the black and white.

KAREN OIKONEN

Co-Curator

Karen is an experienced design researcher, service designer and educator with deep expertise in participatory approaches within healthcare, academia, government and private sectors. As an innovation designer at The Moment, Karen has led projects in design research, service design, strategy and participatory design. She is most interested in understanding the complexities of our human experience, within environments, systems, networks, and communities, as a catalyst for positive change. 

Committed to making a positive impact on the human experience at the end of life, Karen’s personal work explores the family experience of death and dying through the lens of design. She has collaborated on multiple participatory installations to engage the public in conversations about death and dying including: Constellations: The family experience of end of life, a collaboration with Kate Hale Wilkes; Going Home to Die, a collaboration with Wilkes, Dr. Sarina Isenberg and Stephanie Saunders; and The Reflection Room as Senior Design Researcher at SE Health. 
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Karen has a Masters of Design in Strategic Foresight & Innovation from OCAD University and is part-time faculty at Sheridan College. She has presented work focused on end of life at both healthcare and design conferences across Canada.

KATE SELLEN

Co-Curator

Dr. Kate Sellen is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD U and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Health Design. She is Director of the Health Design Studio at OCAD U. While at OCAD Kate has served on several program committees as well as university-wide committees and initiatives and several hiring committees. Kate was the Inaugural Director of the Health Design Master's Program.

Kate spent her early career as an interaction designer leading design research, digital strategy, and interaction design in the private sector. She now works on bringing an inclusive and interdisciplinary design approach to healthcare design challenges. Much of her work focuses on design for patient safety in safety critical/high sensitivity topics, including the dosing, ordering, tapering and management of opiates, communication at end-of-life, and the issuing and delivery of blood units for surgery. She has previously held positions at the University of Toronto's Technology for Aging Gracefully Lab, Knowledge Media Design Institute, and AT&T. 

CHIENG LUPHUYONG

Team member

​Chieng is a design generalist, working at the intersection of health and design. In his roles at the Health Design Studio at OCAD University and Quality Improvement Department at North York General Hospital, Chieng strives to advance the democratic principles and social justice values of collaborative (co-) design and participatory methods to support health-equity-driven initiatives.
 
Developed from his background in environmental design, Chieng has a keen interest in the impact of the built and natural environment on human health and well-being. He is fascinated by salutogenic approaches to spatial design (such as biophilic design) and ways to create psychologically and culturally safe(r) spaces.
 
Chieng is grateful to be part of this year’s Dying.festival, particularly in the promotion of design and arts-based practices as a vehicle for meaningful public engagement, communal contemplation, and collective healing surrounding end-of-life experiences. As the artist, Candy Chang, has said in her TED talk, “thinking about death clarifies your life.”

MARYAM MALLAKIN

Team member

Maryam is a health design researcher with cross-disciplinary experience in Health Science and Art and Design. Her primary field of research and design interest lies in the intersection of mental and physical health, and the intervention design of healthcare systems, services, products, and processes, particularly in the context of public health. 

As a researcher and an artist, she extremely interested in applying arts-based data collection and analysis techniques, specifically in practices that aim to improve health and wellbeing.

LUZ PACZKA GIORGI

Team member

Luz is a Mexican-Colombian woman, open-minded researcher, and creative. She has an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience & Psychology from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Design for Health at OCAD University.

As a health designer, she is deeply passionate about the intersection between nature connection, mental health, community health, as well as the development of environmentally sustainable health systems. Her goal is to – through creative thinking & transdisciplinary collaboration – develop more human-centered, accessible, and sustainable health services.

Luz is happy to join the Dying. series to