Fellows

momento memento mori - Heather (Hey There) Kapplow

Heather (Hey There) Kapplow

For the cold dark month of December 2023, Kapplow reflected on death and the inadequacy of memorial for expressing the nuances of being and then ceasing to be, especially in situations of mass extinction.

Kapplow used the time at ZK/U to investigate the uncomfortable gap between how we feel ourselves being and how our external environments and communities shape, categorize and articulate us, in life and afterwards. These explorations became elements of a public workshop and installation called Deathbed Dreams in January of 2024 at Villa Magdadelna K. in Hamburg. 

A description of Deathbed Dreams follows below:

We will all die someday. Even though we don’t talk about it much, we think about it sometimes, and when we think about it, it is common for us to think about how we will be remembered in the world after we die. Will the people around us get it right? Will they understand what it is about us that is completely unique, can never be replicated, will never exist again once we are gone? 

The Deathbed Dreams workshop involves reflecting together on our own eventual deaths and the difficulty that memorial rituals pose for capturing the full nuances of living beings. We will also stay aware of our historical context, thinking together as war rages in the Levant region of the world and many other places—about exactly what it means for every human life to matter—to have value. 

In Deathbed Dreams, we will try to capture and express each workshop participant’s complete uniqueness and value, and to make a clear distinction between how we feel seen externally and how we feel we really are or inside or wish we could be seen. The workshop will result in a simple participatory installation, open for public viewing the following day.

This work is supported by the Goethe-Institute Boston. The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany and is dedicated to promoting international cultural dialogue and exchange. The Goethe-Institut Boston was the first Goethe-Institut in the United States and founded in 1967.