Grief consumes people when they experience the loss of love. Often, they see grief as an ending—a severed state[1] from what they once had. The absence of love, and the pain that comes with it, is what lingers with grief-stricken people. As a result of grief’s unique way of making people focus on the absence in their lives, Grief and What It Can Tell Us About Love takes inspiration from the complicated process of grieving through first-hand accounts and channels it through five short stories. Exhibiting a mini-zine library in an intimate pocket space that physically invites the audience to sit down at the Center of Visual Art, the audience follows five stories exploring the five stages of grief.

Through these narratives, we can find their continuing bonds[2] prove love persists though it is no longer physically with the characters and the complex reality of carrying grief. The memorialization of loved ones who have passed on through bereavement becomes the proof that love was and still is there alongside the grief. Combined with the audiences’ external perception of these narratives, the living memories of the real accounts extracted from people and epitaphs continue so that the love may persist.

[1] Field, Nigel, Larry Thompson, and Dolores Gallagher-Thompson. "Impact of Current Grief on Memory for Past Grief in Spousal Bereavement." Memory (Hove) 14, no. 3 (2006): 297-306.
[2] Jonsson, Annika and Tony Walter. "Continuing Bonds and Place." Death Studies 41, no. 7 (2017): 406-415.