Death & the Maiden co-founder, Sarah Chavez, talks to artist AJ Hawkins about her recent series, The Reclamation, which beautifully examines the decomposition of human bodies and the nutrient cycle through art.

Sarah: Could you tell me about your current work, The Reclamation  and what led you to creating it?

AJ: The Reclamation is my art series about the decomposition of human bodies and the nutrient cycle. Each piece represents a phase of decomposition, from death to dust, and ways nature reclaims our bodies to foster life. For most, this topic is unsettling and uncomfortable, so I am using science to shed light on the importance and complexity of decomposition, and a creative lens to help beautify the subject and engage viewers who might otherwise look away. By highlighting how life is facilitated by death, I’m hoping we can learn that what we see as an end is actually teeming with potential.

This project was born of my own existential crisis. Until my late teens, I was ardently religious. Though I felt certain of my place in Heaven, I was absolutely terrified of death. I remember being afraid to walk near graves in cemeteries; I remember being afraid to walk across my mother’s cowskin rug. In religious circles, people overlook death, saying what really matters is what comes after. When I very intentionally abandoned religion in my early twenties, I also abandoned my “After.” All of a sudden, death mattered – it was no longer a door, but a destination.

I knew nothing about death but its inevitability – the neurotic part of me worried I would be bad at it. I started to spend all of my free time obsessively studying death, decomposition and the nutrient cycle. I found it to be both elegant and gruesome, complex and beautifully orchestrated – it was a different kind of After, and one that I could be certain of, no matter the state of my spiritual beliefs.