Heartfelt: Yuli Sømme on Green Making and the Ecology of Dying

8 Jul

Photograph courtesy of Yuli Sømme. Copyright © Fern Leigh Albert.

Textile artist Yuli Sømme on making felted woollen shrouds and soft coffins and what it means to tread lightly as a craft maker.

By Imogen Hayes

8 July, 2022

Dartmoor based textile artist and maker Yuli Sømme has always had profound respect for the natural world. Until the turn of the century, she was making felted woollen homeware and wall hangings; then, a commission took her work in an unexpected direction, and she began making biodegradable woollen shrouds and soft coffins for natural burials under the name Bellacouche.

“I feel passionately that within the environmental movement, death is not being talked about enough, and people are uncomfortable about the subject,” Yuli told me over Zoom. “I empathise with those feelings, but what I want to express is that through developing Bellacouche, I have grown to feel comfortable talking about it. It's been a cathartic experience.”

The funeral industry at large is reluctant to adapt in the face of the climate emergency. Cemetery wooden coffin burials and cremations remain the most common types of funeral in the UK, with cremation being the most popular, accounting for 75% of funerals in the UK in 2021, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report. Yuli is part of a movement for reform in mainstream funeral care and for reframing our thinking towards funeral planning, bolstered by organisations such as The Natural Death Centre, the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, and The Good Funeral Guide.

While demand for wooden coffin burials and cremations remains high, meadow and woodland burials have seen a gradual increase in popularity over recent years. The SunLife Cost of Dying Report recorded one in 14 (7.2%) funerals was an eco, environmental or woodland service in 2016, but by 2017 this figure increased to one in 11 (9.1%). In 2020, SunLife recorded 11% of people surveyed wanted an eco or woodland funeral, and in 2021 4% of funeral directors surveyed said they would like to see more people becoming aware of eco and woodland funerals.

A natural burial is a carbon neutral alternative to fossil fuel intensive cremations and coffin burials. Some natural burial sites will not accommodate the burial of ashes, because of the environmental impact of the cremation, which releases mercury into the air and water, as well as producing nitrogen oxide, dioxins, and particulates. Some burial sites will not cater for bodies that have been embalmed, as the chemicals used in the embalming process may leach into the soil. At a natural burial site, the coffin must be made of biodegradable materials such as recycled cardboard, wicker, willow, banana leaf or bamboo. Burial shrouds are also encouraged as an even less resource intensive alternative.

Yuli has produced shrouds and coffins for natural burials, as well as cremations, in traditional churchyards, municipal cemeteries, and woodland and meadow burial sites alike. Comments on her website are evidence of the comfort that her soft coffins and shrouds have brought her clients. Many reference the warm and pleasant feeling that the appearance of the felt evokes, how natural it feels to wrap a loved one in a warm woollen blanket, and to touch the shroud or coffin and feel that the departed is still present under the soft curves of the felt cover. Lesley Mary Close, a funeral celebrant who delivered a service for one of Yuli’s clients who opted for her Leafcocoon was warmed by ‘the hope it held out for the way the energy contained in this body would be recycled by nature’.

Sustainability is as intrinsic to Yuli’s practice as it is to the Craft movement as a whole. Integral to Craft are the principles of slow making, hand making, quality over quantity, utility, resourcefulness, and using only what is necessary. A deep understanding of the source material is also central to Yuli’s philosophy. She sources her wool carefully from holistically managed and organic wool flocks across the South West, and continuous refinement of her process over the years has led her to specialising in primitive breeds of sheep, as she prefers their wool quality and tendency towards lesser human intervention.

Yuli has signed the Green Makers’ Pledge as part of MAKE Southwest’s Green Maker Initiative (GMI). The GMI was launched in August 2021, in partnership with the EDRF funded Low Carbon Devon project at the University of Plymouth, and exists to encourage craft makers to consider the environmental impact of their creative practice and inspire them to take steps to become more sustainable. Open to craft makers based across the Southwest, the GMI provides free resources, support and advice for crafts individuals and groups based in the region. To join the GMI, participants are asked to sign a pledge to improve their environmental actions over time through a series of simple commitments. This involves completing a yearly informal report regarding their actions towards a greener craft practice.

I met with Yuli to find out more about the evolution of Bellacouche and what sustainability looks like in her practice.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

Can you tell me a little about Bellacouche?

Bellacouche means ‘beautiful resting place’, and it was the name of the barn that I used as my workshop, where historically they used to make coffins, and where I was making shrouds. It seemed like a beautiful name and so apt.

What I see in the mainstream funeral industry is reluctance to change in terms of the environment. COP26 did focus minds, but I honestly feel that this is the area of our lives that has been badly neglected. Bereavement potentially makes us vulnerable to coercion that this is not a time to be bothered about the environment, and so outdated conventions prevail.

Throughout my 20 years doing this I have made a purposeful attempt at engaging with the mainstream industry. I belong to various organisations and through Zoom I've even been able to go to their AGMs. So, I've tried to engage with the mainstream of this industry and ask questions about the environment: what do you want? What are your aims? I want Bellacouche to really fit in there and to become more mainstream. I had two main products for burial, and they’re both quite involved and intricately designed, because there are some practicalities that you have to think about when you're burying a person or cremating them. Recently, I decided to add a third product, the Heritage Shroud, which is a nod to the 1667 Act of Burial in Wool. This was a British law that stated the dead must be buried in wool, designed to keep England’s wool economy thriving. I wanted to provide something more affordable, stripped back to pure simplicity and the essentials of what is needed to bury a loved one in an ecological way. It’s not just the fact of funeral poverty that inspired me, it’s the elegance and honesty and simplicity that I wanted. We are all equal in death. Actually, we are quite lucky in this country that there are relatively few laws about how we can do funerals, unlike most of the American states. For instance, there is plenty of information on the internet on DIY funerals, some of which is linked on my website, and my part of that is that I can provide a product that is both comforting and ecological.

What does sustainability look like in your practice?

Within my practice I embrace technology, and I acknowledge that my business would not have taken off without the internet, and so I'm grateful for that. However, it's often said that technology will get us out of this hole, but it won't — it will get us into a deeper hole. So, what I want to emphasise through my practice is appropriate use of technology and not becoming over technologised, because that means more resource extraction. So for instance with the Heritage Shroud, that's what it embodies. I was thinking, what is the essential that you need? You need a covering for a body, you need it to be empathetic and comforting. And you need it to be practical, so it needs handles. You don't need a coffin. I feel like I'm breaking into a new way of thinking, questioning why do we have coffins? What's that about? It's resource hungry, it's heavy, transportation is more expensive. Most of it comes from abroad. It's full of glues, it's full of plastics. There's not very much good about it, unless you're making it from sustainably and locally sourced wood. And possibly willow, although willow has its problems in that chemicals are used to kill fungal infestations, so I have reservations about willow.

So, I'm just stripping things back, thinking how can I avoid sewing this seam? Can I put this together with a toggle? The toggles are just pieces of wood that I cut from the hedgerows. It's almost secretive. I go in with my little pruning saw to a little coppice somewhere and cut away and I leave things that I'm not using, and as it's Hazel wood it regenerates beautifully. I've found a lovely way of folding fabric too. I've had to explore over the last 20 years how to do things like that – how to make a flat piece of felt into a three-dimensional papoose. I love that combination of something from the hedgerow with wool, where you create pleats and folds, and then you just hold it all together with a simple toggle. I’m avoiding the use of cotton yarn as much as possible as this has a large carbon footprint. So that’s how I’m developing: stripping things back to the pure essentials.

“Scarcity is the mother of invention, isn't it? So, see it as a really wonderful, wonderful challenge. Most craftspeople have no money. But we have our brains, we have creativity, and resourcefulness and the wherewithal to find where we can learn the skills.”

Some emerging makers might experience sustainability as a kind of restriction. But for you, it seems to be a restriction that breeds innovation. Has the challenge of sustainability always been a source of new ideas for you?

Well, my mum was a huge influence. She was an environmentalist, so she really shaped my worldview. Most of my training was in the 1980s. I did a handloom weaving course in Bradford. We had to experiment and make a lot of samples. I think I was the only one who decided I was going to hand spin all my yarns for my samples. So, my whole presentation was hand spun, as well as naturally dyed and hand woven. You might see the Green Maker Initiative as a challenge and think it's hard work. But it's not. It's absolutely joyful! I can tell anybody who's embarking on sustainability that it is so interesting. You find much better ways of doing things, and I think it goes back to this paring down of what's needed. That’s really become my philosophy, thinking do I need to have something from a global source, or can I source something locally? Can I find something joyful and something wonderful and different?

Photograph courtesy of Yuli Sømme. Copyright © Yuli Sømme, 1983.

Do you have any advice for somebody trying to make their practice more sustainable on a budget?

In the paring down of how I make things, there is a natural decrease in the cost of the materials. For example, by using something that someone else has discarded, the value is then in the making, and not so much in the materials. I use a lot of material from Proper Job, which is a reuse, composting, and recycling centre in Chagford. I test the material to make sure the fibres are natural. In this process I am supporting an environmental charity in my community and spending money locally. Cutting carbon can also cut costs. For instance, I had been buying jute webbing and cotton strapping which have no provenance, and later on I began to consider, what is their ecological impact? Through experimentation I have replaced these with materials from Proper Job. I get massive bags of textile waste that I can make use of, both within my work, as well as for packaging, so some of my parcels are sent in cloth bags that I make up from waste. I feel if you have the will, you will always find the way. You might have to compromise. The word sustainability means not buying stuff, and that's what the whole craft movement is about, really, is thinking I can make that myself. Scarcity is the mother of invention, isn't it? So, see it as a really wonderful, wonderful challenge. Most craftspeople have no money. But we have our brains, we have creativity, and resourcefulness and the wherewithal to find where we can learn the skills.

What inspired you to make felt coffins and shrouds?

There were various threads that led me to making shrouds. First, my interest in the history of wool, the development of the Industrial Revolution, and the law that decreed that the dead must be buried in wool. It touched something deep inside me at age 14; I thought it was really beautiful.

I was born in Norway and my father died when I was very young. This profoundly and negatively affected me, and my grief was compounded by moving from the glorious Norwegian landscape to Dartmouth, which is like a gold fish bowl in comparison. It has taken decades to process this event, and the making of my first shroud was a cathartic and helpful process.

I was inspired to make a piece of work for an exhibition at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen called ‘Treading Lightly’ in 1999, set up by the Guild Director, Alex Murdin. I focused on the Cycle of Life: I made a wedding cape, a woollen nappy and changing mat for a baby, and a shroud to complete the symbolism. I had gone through the last decade of the 90s having children and using wool instead of disposable nappies, lying them on sheepskins instead of cotton or plastic, and making clothes for them from cut down and shrunken woollen garments that I found at jumble sales. About a year later, somebody in Chagford where I live approached me to come and measure her husband who was dying, and asked me if I would make him a shroud out of his own wool. I was a little taken aback, not knowing anything about the funeral industry. I had no idea if the initial shroud was going to take me anywhere because after I'd made that exhibition piece, I worked on other projects, thinking that was the end of the concept. But that first commission awakened something in me, and I could see there was a need for something different to the current conventions. It was then I found myself involved in a movement that was seeking alternative ways of creating ceremony around a death.

What do you think is the role of craft makers in responding to the climate emergency?

I’m really aligned with the philosophy of Sarah Corbett of the Craftivist Collective, which she describes as complementary and alternative to Extinction Rebellion: quietly making things as an act of rebellion. I feel that the way I live and how I practise within Bellacouche is a form of activism in itself. It's quiet revolution. It's slow revolution. The government has slammed down on any creativity in schools whatsoever, and this is ringing many alarm bells. That’s where MAKE Southwest and people like Sarah Corbett, and anybody who's a craftsperson, can be an activist by supporting education, supporting colleges, and supporting people who want to learn. The more that we can get together through projects like the Green Maker Initiative to invite people in in a positive way the better, and I think Craftivism is such a brilliant way of doing that. We can't rely on governments anymore. We've seen that with COP26. Nothing changed. We've got to do it ourselves. We cannot go on thinking in this way of continual growth, and that we can get anything at the click of a mouse, and Amazon will bring it to our doors. We need to recognise that that is not the way forward. So, the more that craftspeople can find alternatives to their sources, really research them, and try and localise that as much as possible the better. Know your material, know its background, its biochemistry, its environmental impact, and understand that you can't just make stuff. Don't just buy stuff to make more stuff. Know what it is you're making and understand the materials.

bellacouche.com

Laura Wasley