Mortality

For my self initiated folio this semester, I explored the concept of Mortality. I defined mortality as the state of being subject to death (the quality or state of being mortal). This concept is personal for me as I grieve the loss of family members. My own personal journey lead me to have a open opinion about an afterlife. For obvious reasons this subject was a rather tough one to explore therefore I decided to focus my concept beyond the self and inevitably focused on a more universal concept of mortality from a third person perspective. I responded to John Keats’ poem Bright Star focussing on the last line “ Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live forever - Or swoon to death” Keats is grappling with the paradox of the desire for permanence and a world of timelessness and eternity (like a star), while living in a world of time and flux. My concept began with a clear focus to explore how times fades; a state of slowly disappearing, losing importance or becoming weaker, to disappear or die gradually. This however change into my own personal fascination with mortality and whether there is an afterlife. I feel that we are a spirit that has an energy. Energy can’t be create nor destroyed and my folio expresses this ideal. I depicted this through the use of light drawing and objects of time (frame, clock, chair). We are what we are, not what we are thought of yet memories and objects of memory are all that’s left. From here we are but spirit.