What death looks like around the world: Michael Gleich’s photo journey comes to Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: German photographer and writer Michael Gleich has spent years travelling across continents to capture one of life’s most profound subjects — death. His camera has focused on cemeteries and funeral rites in about 30 countries, exploring how different cultures express loss and remembrance.

Now, Gleich’s evocative photographs are on display in an exhibition organised by the Goethe-Zentrum at Museum Bandstand in Thiruvananthapuram. The show features around 100 photographs, each reflecting a distinct cultural response to death — from heart-wrenching public grief to quiet, contemplative farewells.

“Visiting cemeteries evokes many emotions,” Gleich said, adding that while some images show raw sorrow, others portray moments of peaceful acceptance. In some countries, people even read books near graves, turning burial grounds into spaces of calm reflection rather than despair.

Gleich’s decade-long project has taken him to around fifty cemeteries and numerous funeral ceremonies in countries including the United States, Tunisia, Malaysia, Lebanon, South Africa, and Rwanda. His lens has also captured Hindu rituals in Kannur, Kerala.

He began this journey after the loss of his own parents — an experience that deeply shaped his artistic vision. “It was only when my father and mother passed away that I truly understood the intensity of grief,” Gleich said. This personal encounter with death inspired him to explore how people around the world ritualise mourning, discovering that death is not always about sorrow but can also represent renewal and continuity.:

The exhibition invites visitors to contemplate death as a universal experience that transcends geography, religion, and language. Through his photographs, Gleich documents funeral customs from diverse faiths — Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and others — revealing both the diversity and shared humanity of grief.

From Tunisia’s arid burial grounds to Kerala’s coastal cremations, his work captures the poetry and pathos of final farewells. While some images evoke a sense of communal mourning, others focus on solitude and reflection, suggesting that even in loss, there is grace.

Michael Gleich’s ongoing quest to document death rituals worldwide continues to expand. For him, each photograph is not only a visual record but also a meditation on how humanity finds meaning in the cycle of life and death.