Text/ Ning Sen
"She may not live for more than two weeks."
The whole family knew about Grandma's terminal cancer, except for herself because she didn't understand the Mandarin spoken by the doctors. After leaving the hospital room with confusion, she saw a recovered patient presenting a gift to the doctor, and she said to her family, "That's nice. I should come and give a gift too. Thank the doctor properly!"
That happened half a year ago, and Grandma, living amidst the lie of "it's just a liver problem, causing fluid buildup in the abdomen," miraculously survived. I wondered, if she knew her own life expectancy, would she still be fearless? Could she live freely even with the knowledge of her impending death?
So, I attempted to engage the public through participatory art, enabling viewers to have intimate conversations about death, which is inherently private. Perhaps, confronting death alone is taboo, lonely, distant, unknown, and frightening... But what if death becomes a public gossip? Could it be humorous, vivid, intimate, open, and calm?
In the exhibition, viewers can participate in their own death scenes through virtual reality, take and post their personal postmortem photos, draw death-related divination sticks, and gaze at death... Random yet profound experiences, writing about their own and others' deaths, whether it is the demise of the physical body or the rupture of the spirit. However, this is not the end of life; it is more like a part of life, a game that we will all experience.
After knowing your own life expectancy, how long can you still live?