In Johannesburg, cemeteries are set to become places of tourism and energy

Johannesburg, a cramped global city, is banking on its cemeteries to invent innovative memorial tourism. Digitization, green funerals, solarization... Mayor Dada Morero is rethinking death to revitalize urban space. This gesture may come as a surprise. Yet it demands frank debate. Because these resting places are also those of our collective memory.

Overturning the mausoleums of the past

The observation is clear: out of 42 municipal cemeteries , only three or four remain available for new burials. Faced with this predicted void, the mayor is proposing a radical overhaul: digitizing funeral records so that everyone can, from their living room, locate their parents' graves with a single click. This online display of our dead as enlightened witnesses to a world that's accelerating? A plea for a digital South Africa that finally takes responsibility for its land, even for its forgotten ones.

But that's not all: why not transform some cemeteries into solar power plants? The mayor hasn't ruled out the idea. The same ground on which lives rest becomes an electric field: a contemporary irony, a valley of meaning with photovoltaic sensors as a backdrop.

Breaking taboos, healing the future

"Land alone will not solve our problem," insists Morero, land is not enough. He advocates innovation: multiple burials in family graves, cremation, mausoleums, ecological burials. All wrapped up in a project that is both rational and irreverent: "I must be cremated when that day comes..." he says in response to family reluctance.

The challenge isn't just practical: it's cultural. In many Black communities, the coffin, the funeral car, and the tent—outward signs of mourning—are all costly social symbols that must be deconstructed. A ritual revolution, in short: dignified and lasting.

Between pragmatism and provocation

The idea of ​​transforming cemeteries into memory tourists or solar batteries is shocking. It questions the sacred, plays with our emotions, and disturbs with raw elegance. But it also highlights the urgency: in a Johannesburg suffocating with past lives, should we let these lands end up as silent wastelands?

Jozi hosted the South African Cemeteries Association's (SACA) national conference from 25 to 27 August 2025, themed "Eternal Evolution — Transforming for Sustainability." Full of promise, this event calls for a radical shift: cities, churches, industries, and communities are all invited to co-write a new page in the history of funerary history.