Diane Leclair Bisson has undertaken a sustained investigation into the conservation and dispersal of human ashes, examining the funerary objects and ritual practices through which these acts are culturally mediated. Her research engages with questions of material transformation, ecological accountability, and the affective capacity of objects to shape perception, memory, and experience. Situated within broader ethical, environmental, and cultural debates, this work seeks to reframe the ceremonial and symbolic dimensions of cinerary urns and contemporary practices of mourning.

As cremation has become increasingly prevalent—driven by economic, spatial, and environmental considerations—funerary material culture has struggled to evolve at a comparable pace. While cremation is often understood as a lower-impact alternative to traditional burial, it raises new questions regarding the handling, distribution, and memorialization of ashes. Leclair Bisson’s research responds to this shift by addressing the ecological footprint of funerary practices and by challenging the conservative aesthetic vocabulary that continues to dominate cremation-related objects, proposing instead new material and formal typologies aligned with contemporary values and rituals.

Developed since 2013, this body of work demonstrates design’s capacity to act as a critical and reflective practice in response to the transformation of funeral rites in industrialized societies. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork, material experimentation, and design research—and developed in close collaboration with the environmentally driven Montréal-based funeral home Memoria—the project encompasses a wide range of funerary objects, including conservation urns for domestic or columbarium use, biodegradable vessels for in-ground burial, hydro-soluble ice urns for water ceremonies, textile forms for ash dispersal, temporary / ‘rental’ urns, and reliquaries designed for the preservation and sharing of partial remains.

Through the proposal of new funerary practices, the adaptation of familiar materials, and the introduction of newly developed ecological materials by Leclair Bisson, the work affirms both permanence and impermanence as essential dimensions of funerary objects, positioning them as active participants in processes of mourning, transformation, and ethical remembrance.