Events

• Green Burials at Mount Auburn - a talk & tour
  Tuesday, July 26, 5:30 PM
  What is a green burial? Are you confused by the concept? There are several definitions of Green Burial. What's yours? Join Candace Currie and Jim Holman in Story Chapel for a brief discussion followed by a walking tour. Learn about the ways Mount Auburn may accommodate your burial wishes and where burials might occur within the bounds of Mount Auburn's 175 acres. Free.
  
  Candace Currie is Mount Auburn's Director of Planning & Sustainability. Jim Holman is Mount Auburn's Director of Cemetery Services.
  
  Mount Auburn Cemetery
  580 Mount Auburn Street
  Cambridge, MA 02138
  friends@mountauburn.org
  617-547-7105
  

  2011 FCAEM Annual Gathering
  Saturday, March 19, 1-3pm
  Forsythe Chapel, Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston
  YOUR FINAL RIGHTS: DON’T BE CAUGHT DEAD WITHOUT THEM!
  a talk by JOSH SLOCUM, Executive Director of the FUNERAL CONSUMERS ALLIANCE
  All are welcome to this public event featuring one of the nation’s foremost experts on the funeral industry, leading advocate for the rights of funeral consumers, and co-author of the forthcoming book, Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death.
  
  Our speaker this year is leading author and advocate Josh Slocum, Executive Director of the national FCA. Slocum's new book, co-written with Lisa Carlson, is Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death. It provides a comprehensive state-by-state guide to consumer laws and trends affecting consumers of after-death care. For more about Slocum and the Annual Gathering, see our 2011 FCAEM newsletter. We look forward to a lively and important gathering. Members and non-members welcome.
  Date: Saturday, March 19
  Time: 1-3pm
  Location: Forest Hills Cemetery, Forsythe Chapel, 95 Forest Hills Ave., Jamaica Plain, MA
  Directions: http://www.foresthillscemetery.com/directions.html
  This event is part of FCAEM’s Annual Gathering speaker series. All are welcome. Refreshments too!
  

• Talk by Jae Rhim Lee about the Infinity Burial Project
  Monday, March 14th
  7PM - 9PM
  MIT Bartos Theater Weisner Bldg (E15) Lower Level, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA
  Jae Rhim Lee's current work, the Infinity Burial Project (http://jaerhimlee.tumblr.com/), proposes alternatives for the post-mortem body andfeatures the training of a unique strain of edible mushroom to decompose and remediate toxins in human tissue. Jae Rhim Lee's work challenges the boundaries prescribed by society and culture between self and other by proposing unorthodox relationships for the mind/body/self, and the built and natural environment. Lee has exhibited both nationally and internationally and is a recipient of a Creative Capital Foundation Grant (2009), Institut für Raumexperimente/Universität der Künste Berlin Grant (2010), and the renowned MAK Schindler Center Scholarship, Los Angeles.

• Located in Kendall Square, Cambridge. Take the MBTA red line to the Kendall/MIT stop. Follow Main Street west to Ames Street, turn left,and walk one block. Ames Street has limited on-street parking. Visitors may park in MIT campus lots after 5PM. (The Hayward Lot is on Hayward Street, off of Amherst Street or Main Street.)

• act@mit.edu
  617—253—5229

• 
  Post-Mortem Options: A Workshop on the Dead Body
  This workshop will feature a diverse group of representatives from the funeral industry and others who will provide an overview of the options for burial, cremation, and other alternatives. Come learn about new and traditional technologies in the funeral industry, the green burial movement, consumer organizing in the funeral industry, and traditional funerals. Then discuss the options and our cultural attitudes toward death. The workshop will include presentations from representatives followed by a Q&A and discussion. This workshop is sponsored by the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology and the Decompiculture Society, a group which promotes the acceptance of death and the practice of cultivating decomposing organisms. The event is organized by Artist and Designer Jae Rhim Lee (http://www.jaerhimlee.com). Representatives from FCAEM will present at the event.
  Date: Tue Jan 25, 2011
  Time: 6-8:30pm
  Room: MIT, Room E15-209
  

• Green Burial Information Session
  On Sunday, November 7, 2010, Carol Coan and Judith Lorei of the Green Burial Committee of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Massachusetts will present information on this natural option for burial. The presentation will take place in the Community Room of the Robbins Library, 700 Mass. Ave., Arlington, MA, from 2:30 – 4:30 pm. All are welcome at this free information session. Refreshments will be served.

[last updated 2011-02-05]