In death, we see the whale’s body can provide for thousands of lives. We see humans can do the same – through our body, but also our material legacy. Yet, there are few spaces to speak about death, let alone our material legacy. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the importance of talking about end-of-life care.

We propose an empathetic space to talk about death, dying and our material legacy. Visitors to the Natural History Museum are greeted with an interplay of smoke, video projections and sound of crashing waves – an underwater landscape immerses ‘Hope’ the Whale.

The design intervention weaves the metaphorical narrative between whale fall and material legacy. Visitors are prompted to visualise their material legacy and their impact as consumers.