“Prototype”
{Mixed Media Photo Installation}
The language we use around death is often contradictory or confusing. We say may they ‘Rest in Peace’ but also they went to be with our loved ones? Are our loved ones who have ‘passed’ peaceful? We say they’ve gone to a better place? How do we know they have gone anywhere? Some say “I don’t care what you do with my body, I’ll be gone”. Gone where? Do we really know if we have a separate soul or spirit in the body? Is it just the body that dies? I think we struggle to deal with death as humans as we are confused about the nature of the body and the
mind and the soul.
When I was sick, one of my mantras I made up to get me through the pain was ‘I am Gold’. It helped me focus on something beautiful and positive, a strong version of my body or perhaps at least a better view of a body that was meant to function well for a time. I spent many an hour lying in bed reflecting on my nature. I thought I was dying but wondered what part of me was going to die? My body? My me? I saw that my death anxiety was because I didn’t want to not exist. Medically, I learned that my body is run by my nervous system, and I simultaneously learned what happens when it doesn’t work and marveled at how it did work, when it does work.
This piece asks you to consider - are we our body, or skin, or the light that runs through us? When we ‘die’ does our light leave the body and leave our bones behind?
Who made us like this? Why do we all have the same design with slightly unique differences? Who decided we get to have life? Who decided we have to die?