Fear of Death

“The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.” -Ernest Becker Fear of death is a completed photographic series shot on medium format film. Beginning in march of 2022 and concluding in september of 2023, I traveled between Massachusetts, New York, New jersey, and California, producing surrealistic and absurd photographic scenes through the pairing of physical environments, sourced props, and hand-built sculptures. I created these images to examine the role of death as both an American media object and vessel for traversing grief, western culture, perception, aspiration, and collective effervescence.