Loom is a digital heirloom that can be passed down through generations to tell the story of a person’s life and the impact they had on others. Loom serves to cultivate a culture of intention and meaning by preserving valuable memories, and by creating something that lasts. Our design brief was to disruptively improve the New Normal, an oxymoron that made as little sense to me as waking up one day knowing a family member just passed due to Covid, or that people were buried in mass graves because there wasn't enough space to give their bodies the respect of rest. This project was a response to the ecosystems of impact a person's passing can have on their loved ones and their environment.

During the pandemic, so much of our lives were progressing on screen, new hobbies, new trends, new jobs. This was the same for the death industry. We had virtual funerals and digital commemorations, we wrote wills and grieved online. This was a big shift in the customs of death that made it difficult to process the trauma in a tangible and conscious way. Major events in our lives became hard to pin to a specific time and place. While time still progressed in our semi-pseudo online lives, what about the digital lives of those who passed? Do their digital presence continue to live, oblivious of their physical passing?

“Oxford Internet Institute researcher Carl Ohman anticipates that, by 2070, Facebook will have more deceased people with accounts than living ones, and this number may increase to about a billion people over the next three decades”. At this junction in time, the eldest generations may not have an internet presence at all while it seems like our youngest are programmed to be tech literate from birth. What happens to our digital lives after we pass and who takes care of all the sentimental value locked in photo galleries and social media accounts? How long do our stories last and who manages our legacies? Are social media accounts our heritage and are they worth preserving?