15 — Process
Luminous
Darkness
Terror Management theory proposes that nearly all human activity is driven by fear of death: one of life’s greatest mysteries and its ultimate inevitability. What if, instead of being afraid, we could embrace death? There’s a certain beauty in knowing that life is finite and that everything will come to an end, for everyone—because there can be no death without life. This recalls one of the most debated topics: life after death; a ponderable imponderable. There are many varying and opposing philosophical, religious, and cultural views on this but there can be no definitive answer. And yet, by acknowledging the saliency of mortality, we acknowledge the sureness of death and, indeed, its beauty. I am intrigued by the idea that we are more than our physical selves. As a multidisciplinary designer, I use the human body together with the nuances of textiles and fashion as points of inspiration and create pieces that showcase the fact that the human body is more than a material object, more than a finite being in space. The work is a celebration of beauty, literally and existentially: the beauty of the human form, the beauty of mortality, the beauty of death.
The idea behind this formulated in my head through a writing exercise. We were tasked with writing four poems about anything we wanted, and I became really entranced and fascinated by the kinship and grasp that life and death have over the lives of humans. I was drawn to the idea that we are so intrinsically intertwined with this notion that people’s whole lives revolve around death, more specifically, the fear of death.
So by the time these poems were due, I wrote four that tackled four main themes on this topic. They were: Death, Life/Birth, Belief, and Reincarnation. These four poems ended up shaping the direction that this would take.
However, prior to making these final pieces, I also had debated utilizing fashion as a source of inspiration for this—hence the fashion pieces at the end of the images. I ultimately decided to merge both these ideas together and use fashion/textiles as a means of exploration to not only explore, but also to showcase these very nuanced and philosophical concepts.
Each of the final pieces has a semblance to it to explain these concepts and much of the final designs referenced couture and/or archival pieces in fashion.
The first piece titled “More Than a Materiality” focuses on the idea that many cultures and people view themselves as more than flesh, more than their own body—this piece is a reference to the notion that we never die, but rather our soul just leaves our body.
The second piece titled “Divinity” references the various beliefs that people and cultures have post-death. Is there an afterlife? Are there divine beings in this life? Do we transcend? These questions are what shape many cultures and belief systems and I wanted to create a similarly recognizable piece while also being abstract in its own way. This piece uses two separate fabrics to overlay one another. One is an allusion to the body through a skeletal-like structure while the other references angel wings, and put together alludes to divine beings.
The third piece titled “Illusive Space” is one of the most abstract pieces that I created and it similarly goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. This piece is a nod to death and how its a familiar concept yet very unknown at the same time. These two pieces placed atop one another reference the unknowingness of life beyond death. Is there life beyond death? Is there an afterlife? The color choices I used in this piece in particular most clearly reference what I had referenced for all of the pieces together; chiaroscuro. This italian painting technique uses strong contrasts of light and dark, and in this piece which can most clearly be seen in this piece.
The fourth piece titled “Rebirth” references the process of reincarnation and how it is a debated topic in regards to the philosophy of death, and one popularized in many cultures—two of note being hinduism and buddhism, and most notably, the saṃsāra. So, for this layered piece, I layered a piece that references a somewhat abstracted pregnant body atop of various words that when read across from each other, mean the opposite. This relates back to the title of the piece as reincarnation plays with two very opposing topics: life and death.
The fifth and final piece titled “Release of the Soul” is a different piece from the rest as it was made using thread. However, even so, still relates back to the rest in the same respect. This piece works similarly to the first one as it abstracts the body, heart, and makes various references to capillaries and blood moving through the body through the red thread. Alternatively, the reason that I also decided to use gold thread within the heart was that I wanted to bring awareness to the idea that death doesn’t need to be something that drives fear within our lives, but rather something that we can acknowledge, and not have it drive the decisions we make.
This project was awarded “Best in Contemporary Practice” at the year-end showcase.
Luminous
Darkness
Terror Management theory proposes that nearly all human activity is driven by fear of death: one of life’s greatest mysteries and its ultimate inevitability. What if, instead of being afraid, we could embrace death? There’s a certain beauty in knowing that life is finite and that everything will come to an end, for everyone—because there can be no death without life. This recalls one of the most debated topics: life after death; a ponderable imponderable. There are many varying and opposing philosophical, religious, and cultural views on this but there can be no definitive answer. And yet, by acknowledging the saliency of mortality, we acknowledge the sureness of death and, indeed, its beauty. I am intrigued by the idea that we are more than our physical selves. As a multidisciplinary designer, I use the human body together with the nuances of textiles and fashion as points of inspiration and create pieces that showcase the fact that the human body is more than a material object, more than a finite being in space. The work is a celebration of beauty, literally and existentially: the beauty of the human form, the beauty of mortality, the beauty of death.
The idea behind this formulated in my head through a writing exercise. We were tasked with writing four poems about anything we wanted, and I became really entranced and fascinated by the kinship and grasp that life and death have over the lives of humans. I was drawn to the idea that we are so intrinsically intertwined with this notion that people’s whole lives revolve around death, more specifically, the fear of death.
So by the time these poems were due, I wrote four that tackled four main themes on this topic. They were: Death, Life/Birth, Belief, and Reincarnation. These four poems ended up shaping the direction that this would take.
However, prior to making these final pieces, I also had debated utilizing fashion as a source of inspiration for this—hence the fashion pieces at the end of the images. I ultimately decided to merge both these ideas together and use fashion/textiles as a means of exploration to not only explore, but also to showcase these very nuanced and philosophical concepts.
Each of the final pieces has a semblance to it to explain these concepts and much of the final designs referenced couture and/or archival pieces in fashion.
The first piece titled “More Than a Materiality” focuses on the idea that many cultures and people view themselves as more than flesh, more than their own body—this piece is a reference to the notion that we never die, but rather our soul just leaves our body.
The second piece titled “Divinity” references the various beliefs that people and cultures have post-death. Is there an afterlife? Are there divine beings in this life? Do we transcend? These questions are what shape many cultures and belief systems and I wanted to create a similarly recognizable piece while also being abstract in its own way. This piece uses two separate fabrics to overlay one another. One is an allusion to the body through a skeletal-like structure while the other references angel wings, and put together alludes to divine beings.
The third piece titled “Illusive Space” is one of the most abstract pieces that I created and it similarly goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. This piece is a nod to death and how its a familiar concept yet very unknown at the same time. These two pieces placed atop one another reference the unknowingness of life beyond death. Is there life beyond death? Is there an afterlife? The color choices I used in this piece in particular most clearly reference what I had referenced for all of the pieces together; chiaroscuro. This italian painting technique uses strong contrasts of light and dark, and in this piece which can most clearly be seen in this piece.
The fourth piece titled “Rebirth” references the process of reincarnation and how it is a debated topic in regards to the philosophy of death, and one popularized in many cultures—two of note being hinduism and buddhism, and most notably, the saṃsāra. So, for this layered piece, I layered a piece that references a somewhat abstracted pregnant body atop of various words that when read across from each other, mean the opposite. This relates back to the title of the piece as reincarnation plays with two very opposing topics: life and death.
The fifth and final piece titled “Release of the Soul” is a different piece from the rest as it was made using thread. However, even so, still relates back to the rest in the same respect. This piece works similarly to the first one as it abstracts the body, heart, and makes various references to capillaries and blood moving through the body through the red thread. Alternatively, the reason that I also decided to use gold thread within the heart was that I wanted to bring awareness to the idea that death doesn’t need to be something that drives fear within our lives, but rather something that we can acknowledge, and not have it drive the decisions we make.
This project was awarded “Best in Contemporary Practice” at the year-end showcase.
final pieces
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(some) exhibition images
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ideation/exploration
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fashion poster exploration
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(some) exhibition images
ideation/exploration
fashion poster exploration
