Understanding mortality through the lens of contemporary photography: How can explorations of the abject and the uncanny in contemporary photography provoke experiences of embodiment and mortality?

Abstract

This essay explores how contemporary photography can provoke an embodied experience in an audience to help initiate the contemplation of mortality. Emerging research and a growing ‘death positive’ movement proposes that death awareness can contribute to improved wellbeing (Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2012). Through practice-based research and ethnographic methods, I investigate how the photographic image might play a part in connecting its viewers to mortality. The theoretical framework for this research is influenced by Roland Barthes, who claimed that every photograph is a representation of death. The research is also influenced by Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Julia Kristeva’s writings on abjection.