Since childhood, I've been acutely aware of mortality, having experienced that life can end for anyone at any time. In "memoji mori: reminders of mortality," I combine the expressive language of emojis with the historical tradition of memento mori. Hand-embroidered skeleton hands, guided by familiar emoji gestures, interrupt reproduced family photographs, bringing contemporary expressions of emotion into conversation with reminders of mortality.
Susan Sontag stated, "All photographs are memento mori." Roland Barthes added, "Every photograph is a certificate of presence." Like emojis, photographs are wordless, open to interpretation. My stitched skeleton hands reclaim and transform vernacular photographs by adding a new layer of meaning, intensifying emotional signals, inviting deeper interpretation...and, ideally, eliciting introspection. Here, humor, grief, memory and mortality coexist.
