Contact

Contact builds a connection to death by re-inviting it into the home space through the practice of rituals.

I began creating rituals with my family after my mother’s death (2016), and used them to re-examine the significance of death as part of life in a series titled Contact. Photographing the rituals re-invited death into our home, and gave me time to live with it, as well as a time to reclaim the experience. The more I became familiar with this presence, the more I began questioning myself. The outcome was an exploration of grief and loss; getting intimate with death against a cultural context that often gets swept under the rug (even though it is one of life’s few hard guarantees). My family and I navigated into new transitioned roles and responsibilities, we created spaces that allowed us to confront the psychological and somatic shock that death delivers.

In modern Western society death is something that’s become nearly invisible and that’s typically told to us rather than witnessed. Contact builds an inner connection to death by working alongside it and questioning the lengths we go to sanitize it. Something that connected me to death for the first time was my mother’s nightgown. This article of clothing was something she purchased but never wore. In fact, I found it still wrapped up in the Macy’s bag it had come in. I discovered it one day when I went back to my mother’s home to visit after she had died. I wanted to search through her belongings and clothes, but was disappointed to find that all of her clothes were already donated by my stepfather. I figured he had his own reasons to do this. Maybe it was too painful to have around. Immediately this gown became a relic for my sisters and I, and it became a motif throughout the series. To this day I keep it in my closet and will continue to take it with me everywhere I go.