An Archive of Questions
Burial sites became grounds for philosophizing.
Over the years I have accumulated an archive of questions:
How do we contain, compartmentalize, and organize death?
In what materials does memory take shape?
What stories do stones tell?
How do burial spaces mirror the lives of the living?
Where are the remnants of past lives when their remembrance is finished?
Who gets to be remembered?
What resists decay?
How long will these burial sites last?
What do we allow ourselves to forget?
What draws us to the deterioration of ruins?
How do encounters with the dead contour the lives of the living?
What responsibilities follow the act of witnessing?
What is the responsibility of the photograph(er)?
What can be learned from strangers?
What are the contact zones of mortality?
What does it mean to die?
What does it mean to live?
How do relationships with dying shift over time?
When does a place become sacred?
What am I searching for?
Can I escape a fear of inevitable death?
What is my place in these places?
How do I hold on?
What does an image not hold?
What lies outside the edge of a photograph’s frame?
How does an image become a lens for another?
What does the unknown look like?
How do we simultaneously mourn and celebrate the unknown?
How can we experience freedom in the face of extinction and crisis?
How do we make meaning through the action of wandering through, in, and out of space?
How does a lived body respond to fragments of the past lingering in the present?
What lessons can wandering teach?
How can we reimagine the future by looking at the past?
What knowledge is situated in a site of burial?
What are the limits of knowing?
What is knowing?
How do we build relationships?
Where is space made for human congregation and connection?
What type of meaning is made from the rituals of burial?
What closure does the action of burial provide?
What are the ways that different cultures have reckoned with death?
How do we express grief?
Where does the cemetery begin and end?
What does the cemetery visually reflect?
What are the varied rituals and traditions surrounding death?
Who visits sites of burial?
Can landscape be preserved if it is continually evolving?
How can we use landscape to create and sustain collective memory?
…
…
…
I cannot fully answer these questions. Throughout this text I barely begin to address all of them, and I still attend to the ones I do. I also continue to collect more.
Burial sites became grounds for philosophizing.
Over the years I have accumulated an archive of questions:
How do we contain, compartmentalize, and organize death?
In what materials does memory take shape?
What stories do stones tell?
How do burial spaces mirror the lives of the living?
Where are the remnants of past lives when their remembrance is finished?
Who gets to be remembered?
What resists decay?
How long will these burial sites last?
What do we allow ourselves to forget?
What draws us to the deterioration of ruins?
How do encounters with the dead contour the lives of the living?
What responsibilities follow the act of witnessing?
What is the responsibility of the photograph(er)?
What can be learned from strangers?
What are the contact zones of mortality?
What does it mean to die?
What does it mean to live?
How do relationships with dying shift over time?
When does a place become sacred?
What am I searching for?
Can I escape a fear of inevitable death?
What is my place in these places?
How do I hold on?
What does an image not hold?
What lies outside the edge of a photograph’s frame?
How does an image become a lens for another?
What does the unknown look like?
How do we simultaneously mourn and celebrate the unknown?
How can we experience freedom in the face of extinction and crisis?
How do we make meaning through the action of wandering through, in, and out of space?
How does a lived body respond to fragments of the past lingering in the present?
What lessons can wandering teach?
How can we reimagine the future by looking at the past?
What knowledge is situated in a site of burial?
What are the limits of knowing?
What is knowing?
How do we build relationships?
Where is space made for human congregation and connection?
What type of meaning is made from the rituals of burial?
What closure does the action of burial provide?
What are the ways that different cultures have reckoned with death?
How do we express grief?
Where does the cemetery begin and end?
What does the cemetery visually reflect?
What are the varied rituals and traditions surrounding death?
Who visits sites of burial?
Can landscape be preserved if it is continually evolving?
How can we use landscape to create and sustain collective memory?
…
…
…
I cannot fully answer these questions. Throughout this text I barely begin to address all of them, and I still attend to the ones I do. I also continue to collect more.