Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

As a child, I was captivated by funerals. I play-acted, directing my two younger sisters to lie still while I ran the funerals. I especially liked being the corpse, but that never worked out, because my sisters would run off. Since childhood, death and funerals have held my fascination. In 2018, my younger sister Hazel died unexpectedly, an experience that brought my childhood fascination back to the surface.

Playing Dead comprises lens-based, multimedia works that draw upon my compulsion to understand in order to process trauma. The installation presents an open-ended narrative, allowing viewers to confront death—a topic that Western society aims to avoid at all costs—and to reconcile themselves to their own mortality. While Playing Dead is an intimately personal work, it offers viewers space within which to contemplate the broader themes of mourning and mortality.