Jon Underwood is the founder of Death Café, a large movem ent where people gather to drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Their aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives. Jon spoke to Global Inno vation Magazine about his current crowdfunding campaign and what made him start in the fi rst place. Tell us about yourself, where did you grow up?
I grew up in Chester, which is near Liverpool in the North West of Eng land. My dad was an accountant and my mum was a social worker and teacher. Dad is an atheist and my mum is
Jewish. My dad was strict and when my parents split when I was 8 and then things were much more relaxed. I have always been interested in culture so I avidly consumed books, TV , movies an d music. I am now 43, married and have 2 children and live in Hackney East Londo n. What was early school like? I was disengaged, quite emotional, lonely, angry and sad. Not much mad e sense to me and my environment, despite being very privileged, seemed somewhat weird and hosti le. Were you good academically? I went to Oxford University so I guess that some people would say so. I am too lazy to be really good academically and after having seen academia I do not have much re spect for or confidence in it. Te ll me about the Death Cafe? My work is about death. I do this because I think death is really impo rtant and plays a significant role in the choices we make in life. Death is very problematic for us, mo re and more so with the decline of traditional institutions and wider awareness of the problems in t he world. Because we don ͛ t like death we have marginalised it. Death now happens behind closed doo rs and is the domain of professionals. Alongside this we relentlessly consume terrifying or unreal images of death through news, films, games and TV . In this context all too often we fail to deal with death as well as we might, which is a real loss. I think we could easily have a much better culture around death and al l my projects are aimed at delivering this. The most significant of these is Death Café which i s a pop up event format where people who want to come together to talk about death over tea and cake. Death Cafes are always group directed. We have no agenda, products to sell, conclusions t o reach or answers to offer, we just let people talk about death. It is now 4 years since the first Death Café took place in my house, facilitated by my mum Susan Barsky Reid. Since then there have bee n over 2500 Death Cafés in 32 countries and the project has helped to change cult ure around death. I have 2 other projects. On behalf of Dying Matters I have set up Find Me Help …show more content…
Key positive and negative moments on this journey?
This work has incredible highs and big downsides.
On the plus side Death Café is a global phenomenon which has improved man y people
͛
s lives and had a significant cultural impact in an area I am passionate about and think is vitally important. I love the work and the people who like Death Café are generally amazing so I
͛
ve made lots of new friends. Death Café has also celebrated and helped promote peopl e, mostly women, who are similarly passionate about this work, who may not have had a pl atform before.
On the downside I have substantially reduced my income, which is now very sm all indeed. If I had focused on financial return I am sure the projects would never have got o ff the ground.
However now that they have some traction I need to ensure that they are sustai nable. This is not easy as my work is somewhat groundbreaking and ahead of the cultural curve.
What 3 bits of advice would you give yourself if you walked through the door of your company, about to start on your first job?
Do what you love, believe in your vision and trust your process.
What book or film would you share with someone that has inspired you?
I
I grew up in Chester, which is near Liverpool in the North West of Eng land. My dad was an accountant and my mum was a social worker and teacher. Dad is an atheist and my mum is
Jewish. My dad was strict and when my parents split when I was 8 and then things were much more relaxed. I have always been interested in culture so I avidly consumed books, TV , movies an d music. I am now 43, married and have 2 children and live in Hackney East Londo n. What was early school like? I was disengaged, quite emotional, lonely, angry and sad. Not much mad e sense to me and my environment, despite being very privileged, seemed somewhat weird and hosti le. Were you good academically? I went to Oxford University so I guess that some people would say so. I am too lazy to be really good academically and after having seen academia I do not have much re spect for or confidence in it. Te ll me about the Death Cafe? My work is about death. I do this because I think death is really impo rtant and plays a significant role in the choices we make in life. Death is very problematic for us, mo re and more so with the decline of traditional institutions and wider awareness of the problems in t he world. Because we don ͛ t like death we have marginalised it. Death now happens behind closed doo rs and is the domain of professionals. Alongside this we relentlessly consume terrifying or unreal images of death through news, films, games and TV . In this context all too often we fail to deal with death as well as we might, which is a real loss. I think we could easily have a much better culture around death and al l my projects are aimed at delivering this. The most significant of these is Death Café which i s a pop up event format where people who want to come together to talk about death over tea and cake. Death Cafes are always group directed. We have no agenda, products to sell, conclusions t o reach or answers to offer, we just let people talk about death. It is now 4 years since the first Death Café took place in my house, facilitated by my mum Susan Barsky Reid. Since then there have bee n over 2500 Death Cafés in 32 countries and the project has helped to change cult ure around death. I have 2 other projects. On behalf of Dying Matters I have set up Find Me Help …show more content…
Key positive and negative moments on this journey?
This work has incredible highs and big downsides.
On the plus side Death Café is a global phenomenon which has improved man y people
͛
s lives and had a significant cultural impact in an area I am passionate about and think is vitally important. I love the work and the people who like Death Café are generally amazing so I
͛
ve made lots of new friends. Death Café has also celebrated and helped promote peopl e, mostly women, who are similarly passionate about this work, who may not have had a pl atform before.
On the downside I have substantially reduced my income, which is now very sm all indeed. If I had focused on financial return I am sure the projects would never have got o ff the ground.
However now that they have some traction I need to ensure that they are sustai nable. This is not easy as my work is somewhat groundbreaking and ahead of the cultural curve.
What 3 bits of advice would you give yourself if you walked through the door of your company, about to start on your first job?
Do what you love, believe in your vision and trust your process.
What book or film would you share with someone that has inspired you?
I