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Item description
A digitally illustrated design of the “Death” tarot card. The card has a black border and a blue background, the roman numeral for the number 13, XIII, is at the top of the card and the word death at the bottom, both in a white font. Underneath the number is the text “Pick your poison” with the word “poison” in a dripping, colorful font. Below the text is a skull shaped cauldron with skeleton hands holding up the skull. There are brightly colored vials pouring “potions” and a purple hand sprinkling a blue-purple mixture into the cauldron; numerous vials surround the cauldron, each labeled with current issues and potential causes of death. Some labels include: “depression”, “environmental hazards”, “end-stage capitalism”, and “white supremacy”.
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pick your poison

Nikki Campbell

One of my final undergrad design assignments was to redesign a Tarot card, finding creative ways to communicate the card’s meaning. I ended up designing a Death card and worked to push myself outside of traditional imagery and darkness associated with the idea of death. I was interested in exploring the right-side-up vs upside-down meanings of the card, specifically the association with death as a metamorphosis/change when upright or a sign of stagnation/decay/fear of change when upside down. I tried to utilize color, tone, and magical/cosmic imagery to explore the duality of death and its card; the potential magic, beauty, stillness, and vibrance in death as a vehicle to realms beyond this one.

I wanted to explore some of my current personal views around and relation to death. I’ve always had death anxiety, but it has gotten much, much worse during the pandemic. I'm at high risk for severe covid/death because of my chronic and autoimmune illnesses, so I collected a lot of trauma from spending everyday feeling hyper-aware of my proximity to death and fearing a momentary exposure that could shut down my body 100 different ways. It has also been a special kind of heartbreaking to see my “friends”, community, and government disregard the value of disabled lives and jump to sacrifice the vulnerable for capitalism/convenience.