remember that
you're going to live
'remember that you're going to live' takes you on a photographic stroll through cemeteries in London, Paris and Lisbon - a way of coming to terms with human finitude... and the urgency of living.
When i moved to Lisbon, i heard about the cemetery of Prazeres, which translates as the cemetery of pleasures. What an interesting name, i thought — is it a particularly pleasant place to spend the afterlife, or would it be the dreadful desolate land where pleasures go to die?
On my first visit to this 19th-century cemetery, i saw a sign on a tomb that read: abandoned. I wondered, could you actually get out of the grave and move to a better place if you got tired of the neighbourhood? On another walk through the alleys, i noticed a branch coming out of a tomb through the broken door window: it was heavy with early spring burgeons.
near the entrance of the cemetery of pleasures
the charming ass of a young woman
with a skin of stone
the flowers are made of cloth
or carved in marble
they try to last
nothing lasts
people die
on messaging apps a notification
this person has left the group
a chair in a garden remains unoccupied
a sign on a grave reads 'abandoned'
did the occupant give up their accommodation
and where did they go
these are abysmal questions
why hang around with a simple, horrible truth
to tame it perhaps
it's no easier than taming a fox
