The place we are in

*All of these graves were drawn from Nunhead cemetery and are all real peoples gravestones.

The project is called the place we’re in. When I thought about that, I immediately thought of graveyards. They’re the place we are all going to end up being in so they are the places all of us shared. It’s like a Chinese phrase“all good houses are temporary, urns are our eternal homes ”. I went to Nunhead cemetery and took some photos of the graves there then I did the drawing based on them with colored pencils, pastels and watercolor. When I was at the cemetery I felt paced. It’s a place that full of the dead so as soon as people step in there they can feel the quiet and peaceful atmosphere and get rid of the problems belong to the living world for a while. It almost feels like nothing really matters there. I felt the boundary between the dead and the living was not clear anymore. I really enjoy the idea of sharing the same space with people who died before I was born, even hundreds of years ago. It gives me a lot of comfort. There were some graves left me sad but warm feelings. One of them was a grave for a little boy. His parents built it into the shape of a teddy bear. Another was a broken sculpture of a dog covered with moss in front of a grave . When I thought maybe it’s a pet of the owner and they wanted it to be with them forever I was touched. My work was inspired by Farber Gravestone Collection from Daniel Farber and Jessie Lie Farber.

The Place We Are In

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