“TaBOO!”
{Mixed Media Installation with Video}
One of my main interests is the dichotomies around death and dying. It makes me a very curious human, trying to understand why we do things in a certain way and either continue the traditions of previous generations, or evolve beyond them.
Western society isn’t great about talking about death. Perhaps recently it’s getting a little better with the rise of the Death Doula movement and as our more environmentally minded thinking is causing us to question even how we die and how our disposal affects the bigger picture. But mostly we still lock away these conversations in the safe of our heart and only let it surface now and then in
like minded company.
Halloween is maybe one month of the year when we will ‘entertain’ death, of course it being in sync with our natural seasonal cycles. But we are so eager to pack it all away again in the garage until next year. At some point, we are so over it.
Sit and listen to some of my interviewees talk about our relationship to death (20 minutes on a loop).
Meanwhile, we are surrounded with images of death in the media, in books, video games and in movies. We are saturated with them.
Are we able to consume these images and stories because they are fake? Can we deal with deaths that aren’t really real? Are these ‘safe’?
We watch movies of people shooting each other as entertainment and yet never question the script that left the dead body on the road. We are too busy moving with our main character to the next scene. But did anyone call the shot guy’s wife? Did someone come and take his body away? Did anyone revere him and remember him?
Some things just don’t add up. While real wars are raging, while real veterans are put in the ground, while real people die from despair, we glorify the ‘famous’ and ‘celebrity’, even to the extent of glorifying their deaths. When a celebrity dies we are shocked and deeply moved. Is it perhaps because some of them feel really close to us, having been in our living rooms, on and off, for countless years of our lives?
Death is said to be the great equalizer. But our stories aren’t equal.
When a billionaire tragically drowns off his yacht in the Mediterranean Sea, it’s all over the papers. When an immigrant drowns on a boat in the same sea, the story is in the paper, but they are condemned.
All of these examples make me curious and disturbed at the same time. We participate in these narratives all day every day and yet our own death stories are locked away and not allowed to see the light of day.