Sarah Mason

January 26, 2023
Decay

Thesis Abstract
For this semester of my thesis, I plan to do a study in decay. Primarily, the natural decayed states of the human body are what interests me. I want to explore the finality in death, but the cyclical aspect of decay, fertilization, and rebirth.

My focus for now is in the building and destructing of, to put it loosely, structures. Structures of the body. I think it might be interesting later on to think about the structuredness of containers, the places we inhabit, the paces we contain our dead, that sort of thing; but for now I’m into the destruction. I’m forever wishing I had the access to a gross anatomy lab. Alternatively, I think it might be interesting to zone in on a microscopic scale, and look at what happens during decay on a molecular level.

I’m keeping this open ended for now because I know I'm indecisive. It’s gonna change, all that stuff. However, I also know I’m going to have to rewrite this abstract at the very least two more times, and I really don’t have a solid pan right now, so that’s where I’m at.


October 12, 2022
After Life

Abstract
Death is not a single pinpoint moment in the cycle of life. It is a process, much like every other stage of life; and even after the consciousness’ point of no return, your body continues to interact with the environment around you. If your body is left in an open environment, you become the feast that feeds the next generation of a wide range of species; including insects, fungi, and scavenger species. Even if your body is in pristine condition, as you decay the proteins and minerals that make up your bones, organs, and ultimately you, get recycled into the dirt, and become fertilizer.

For my project, I would like to contemplate the human species’ relationship with the concept of death. I think that there is extensive beauty in the slow-burning proceedings of putrefaction. I want to explore the functions of the human body, and the parts that make it up, to more thoroughly understand how our bodies pass energy to the next stage of life. I want to study the phases of decay, and how this differs in varying environments and methods of passing. The role that scavenger and decomposer species play in the ’great recycling’ is also incredibly interesting to me.

Tangentially, I’d also like to explore topics relating to spirituality (philosophy of death, cultural significance, religion, burial practices), biology (self-explanatory), and literature (language, poetry, the unknowableness). I think these routes are a good way to visually and conceptually inspire my work, and, of course, in some fashion relate to the process of death itself.


May 2022
Thesis: After Life

Abstract
Death is not a single pinpoint moment in the cycle of life. It is a process, much like every other stage of life; and even after the consciousness’ point of no return, your body continues to interact with the environment around you. If your body is left in an open environment, you become the feast that feeds the next generation of a wide range of species; including insects, fungi, and scavenger species. Even if your body is in pristine condition, as you decay the proteins and minerals that make up your bones, organs, and ultimately you, get recycled into the dirt, and become fertilizer.

For my project, I would like to contemplate the human species’ relationship with the concept of death. For the one truly universal experience of any living being, there is an extensive list for the things that could happen to you after you die. Here in the physical world, depending on your method and location of death, you could be decayed to bone in just a few days, or preserved indefinitely by the environment alone. There is even some emerging ‘science’ that advertises that one day in the future scientists could bring you back after you’re gone, through the use of cryonics, a process that involves deep freezing living tissue in liquid nitrogen. If you are religious, maybe there is a life after death, topped with winged angels and horned demons. With that, comes a slew of practices, rites, and rituals that ensure your posterity after your expiration date. For many in the United States, this means getting pumped full of chemicals (ie. embalming), and being placed in a state-of-the-art casket to be hermetically sealed in a concrete burial vault, which offers to “shield the casket from the earth's weight and heavy maintenance equipment that will pass over it. It also prevents the ground from settling, which helps to resist water and protects the beauty of the cemetery or memorial garden” (Bernando). Of course, this is not the case everywhere, and every culture has its own way of caring for, mourning, and remembering the dead.