Meeting in Nature - Location-Based Commemoration in Israel’s Natural Landscapes, 2025

Mentor: Roee Bigger

Meeting in Nature was born from both personal and collective grief in the Israeli reality of loss and war. The project takes on the delicate question: How can we commemorate the fallen in a way that honors the living landscape and allows each person to choose how and when to engage with their stories, while also ensuring that these personal stories remain heard and present?

The research combined literature review, exploring nature’s impact on well-being and the evolution of commemoration practices in Israel, and field research that included interviews with bereaved families, hikers, professionals, officials, and administrators, along with observations and prototyping. This led to the identification of three key viewpoints:
• The bereaved families’ need to commemorate the fallen as a complete life story;
• The experience of hikers who encounter memorial sites in nature;
• The challenges facing the organizations entrusted with managing and preserving these spaces.

Meeting in Nature proposes commemoration as an encounter – with the fallen, with their life stories, and with the landscape they inhabit, in a space of living memory shaped by the principle of democratization of commemoration.

By integrating augmented reality (AR), the project enables hikers and families to select their own path, pace, and level of personal connection between person, story, and place.