Sharing Vulnerability: Intimate Conversations on Love and Loss on The Red Hand Files

• You can ask me anything. There will be no moderator. This will be between you and me. Let's see what happens. Much love, Nick. Following the death of his teenage son, legendary Australian musician Nick Cave started an online correspondence page called The Red Hand Files. With the invitation above he encouraged fans to ask him anything and he attempts to answer. In this paper I explore the profound exchanges between the artist and his fans relating to grief and loss, which give voice to a sort of collective reimagining of life and self after the loss of a child. The study draws on the publicly available correspondence on the Red Hand Files and published interviews with the artist (e.g. BBC News interview, 2022). In processing his own grief so publicly and in the profound exchanges with his fans, Cave has become a sort of guide to others who mourn, and an example of how grief and loss may be naturally integrated in one’s ongoing life. Drawing on these explorations, we build on recent theoretical understandings of grief (e.g. Christensen, 2021; O’Connor & Kasket, 2022) and connect with previous research on bereaved parents’ use of online support groups as resources for coping with their loss (e.g. Hård af Segerstad & Kasperowski, 2015)20. The results contribute to challenging old normative assumptions of grief which construct grievers as “passive agents to which grief happens” (O’Connor & Kasket, 2022). Christensen’s approach to grief as identity work (2021), is eloquently expressed by Cave on the Red Hand Files (Cave, 2019): […] my son’s death – something that both destroyed me and ultimately defined me. […] My son’s death brought me to the essence of my formed self. [it may be] something that eventually obliterates you, but also brings you back to life, transforming you into something beyond yourself.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Mänsklig interaktion med IKT (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Human Aspects of ICT (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Medievetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Media Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)