Concept
102 bronze death masks, one of each year of life, from a hundred and one years old to fetus, stand on individual pedestals. They form a circle of thirty-five meters in diameter, indoors or outside. Your visitors are welcome to touch the faces.
Concept
They start their walk in the round anywhere in the circle. A silent, quiet space is created for your visitors’ own memories and thoughts. It may take some time until they realize that the age of the depicted persons varies by one year from face to face.
Concept
In Roman times, death masks were touchable pictures of rulers and/or model ancestors. In Romanticism, one made death masks of artists and famous people. FacingDeath is neither one. It shows the face of Everyman. The humorous gaffer. The punk with his Mohawk haircut. The sick child.
Concept
Skull and bones, hourglass or lily used to commemorate of death in former times. We would like to gently refresh that knowledge, using a new metaphor.
Concept
From early on in my life, I have been fascinated by masks. The three-dimensional image of a human being, particularly as cast again and again over time, allows a degree of familiarity that no two-dimensional image can dream of acquiring. When my father died in 1984, I took his death mask, thus forming the beginning of this large memorial project: I just did not want to let go of his face. How many more, I wondered, would like to hold on to the face of their loved ones, if only they could? Over time, the project FacingDeath emerged, transforming an individual experience into a metaphor for humanity.
