Life, Death and Beauty: Where Darwin Meets Courbet
Part of LIFE IS OVER! if you want it it that took the familial experience of Edwin’s father’s death by assisted suicide in the Netherlands in 2000 as a guiding narrative. The exhibition project provided a discursive environment for production, presentation and reflection on issues of life and death and was made in response to personal experience with assisted suicide.
A range of issues around contemporary death were considered; how artists have interpreted death throughout history, how objects and images impact on people's ideas about death and the role that art can play in mediating issues of life and death. The designed environment combined projections, wall drawings, historical artworks, a public studio and an events programme, and merged practice, research and teaching.
In this work 48 slides show a personal collection of art historical and contemporary reproductions (postcards, drawings) and objects on the theme of life, death and beauty, assembled in the artists’ studio. The slides propose a particular reading of the material through photographic framing.
