She is the canary in the coalmine of a dying empire

  • Dates
    2020 - 2020
  • Author
  • Topics Daily Life, Documentary, Editorial, Portrait, Social Issues
  • Location Maastricht, Netherlands

Losing a parent. What could it look like? A crash? A crime? An accident? Slow or fast? I hereby present my mom - she stars in her own death scene - and myself: the daughter who is looking for the best possible death. Could it be possible to die together

You have to dare to do it: staging the death of your mother. Not just once, but multiple times. In her project "She is the canary in the coalmine of a dying empire", Pippilotta Yerna pulls it off with apparent ease.


There lies her mother: washed up on the rocks by a river, in a strange position with eyes wide open on the floor of an empty room, on the hard concrete of a courtyard, with a head wound and wearing yellow rubber gloves. Her daughter is perched on top of the body, capturing the gruesome scene with a telephoto lens.