The plaque reads "intet liv utan dod ingen dod utan liv"

"no life without death, no death without life"

The plaque reads "intet liv utan dod ingen dod utan liv"

Looking at the skeletal remains of over 6 million people, you can always sense your own breath better.

Underground, damp, closed, and dark. Welcome to The Catacombs of Paris.

The Catacombs is the cities response to addressing the 18-century crisis of overflowing cemeteries. The site is the consolidation of tunnels that were originally formed from the underground quarries. From 1786, nightly processions of caravans transferred remains from most of Paris' cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.

The initial catacombs were a random disorganized repository of bones.

It was Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, then director of the Paris Mine Service that initiated renovations of the repository in 1810 that would turn it into a visit-able mausoleum. Louis directed the stacking of femurs and skulls into patterns that imitated remnants of the cemeteries from which they came. These patterns remain today.

The plaque at the base of this heart shaped stack reads “intet lif utan dod ingen do utan kif".

Loosely translated from Swedish, “no life without death, no death without life”.

The Prophet Khalil Gibran in his writings overstates the mutual dependency of life and death reducing the two to the same entity “for life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one’. The origins of this Swedish quote is unclear. However, the quote is recently referenced by poet laureate Simon Armitage’s poem, ‘I speak as someone …’, marking the bicentenary of the death of John Keats in Rome.

Keats died at the age of 25 “Coughing blood from tuberculosis, penniless, despondent about the critical reception of his work, and tormented by an unconsummated love affair". John Keats is the Romantic Poets “Poster Boy” for Romantic Melancholy. Kind of a Victorian Era “Robert Smith” but without the gothic make up and 3 piece band in support. Keats died from symptoms of a plague caught whilst in quarantine trying to enter the Port of Naples.

Armitage says his poem “speaks with Keats’s voice” and containing a Keats-like adage: “no life without death, no death without life”.

To visit the catacombs is an experience that I encourage everyone to do. And when you do, be reminded that to live, one must die. And if you are older than 25 and not suffering from tuberculosis, you’re doing much better than old mate Keats!

LOVE + LIFE + DEATH, The story of Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere

'The tears of Hine Hukatere'

Franz Josef Glacier from the valley floor in 2012

'The tears of Hine Hukatere'

“According to oral tradition, Hine Hukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover Tuawe to climb with her. Tuawe was a less experienced climber than Hine Hukatere but loved to accompany her, until an avalanche swept him from the peaks to his death. Hine Hukatere was broken-hearted and her many, many tears flowed down the mountain. Rangi the Sky Father took pity on her and froze them to form the glacier” [Killick, David (30 August 2018). "The frozen tears of New Zealand's melting glaciers". Deutsche Welle]

Hine Hukatere’s story acts as the underlying theme for my upcoming exhibition of work. The exhibition presents a selection of personal images that canvass the beauty, texture, and tension of love, life, and death.

Abe