...that awaits at the end of life 

The daily news is inundated with tragic stories of death. For many people the opportunity to organise appropriate rituals to pay their respects and celebrate loved ones is lost. Such news and other unfortunate global events reignited memories of how Jacky Cheng once watched her grandmother prepare and renew her hand made funeral costume months before she passed away. Cheng had little knowledge then of why her grandmother’s beautiful clothes were wrapped up and stored in a suitcase for decades. She now knows.

There is a sense of urgency in putting practices in place and caring for lost skills and upholding traditions. While making this work, and Love and Honour, important rites and repetitive rituals were carried out. They invite taboo conversations about preparation and commemorating the after-life; an intangible imaginary future. These works are a rumination on the relationship between paper and spirit – a personal journey of the quintessence of materiality, carried out with traditional methodology.

Photos by Bo Wong