‘She Loved This Place’: Memorial Benches as Death Writing, Life Writing and Life Siting

This paper explores the phenomenon of the memorial bench. Despite the proliferation of online spaces for memorialising a person who has died, there is a growing demand for physical commemorations of family members or friends in places that were meaningful to them, as evidenced by the waiting-lists for memorial benches in sought-after spots. I explore some reasons for their increasing popularity, their very materiality valued as a way of marking a life in a digital age. Memorial benches are also a reminder of the ways in which public spaces are stitched into daily routines, of the quiet value and meaning attached to local public squares, parks and beaches, increasingly encroached upon by privatisation. While memorial benches have been studied as an example of memory and grief practices, they have been, in comparison, relatively neglected as a form of life writing. So this paper also reflects on the benches as a celebration of seemingly undistinguished lives, as a mode of bringing the private into the public and for its performative aspects. Finally, I consider memorial benches as relational narratives — cryptic but often emotionally-charged biographies linking self and other — and analyse some examples.