pick your poison
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.
