Introduction:

Historically, grieving traditions concern a series of actions post-death, however arguably the process of grieving starts long before the passing of a loved one. Coined “anticipatory grief,” these emotions are often pronounced in conversation with conditions including aging, chronic illness, and mental health. My project explores loss in relationship with mental health by materializing the abstract and opposing ideas of absence and presence into singular pieces. Elaborating on the concept of the death mask, I juxtapose the image of the living with objects associated with postmortem memorialization, confronting the living with a tangible image of eventual absence and demonstrating how intimacy is inseparable from preemptive mourning.

Literature Review: 

Scholarly:

I began my research with an examination of how anticipatory grief is defined within medical literature, which commonly understands this phenomenon as “expectations and emotions associated with the fear of losing their significant other (Coelho et. al).” This framing emphasizes that grief unfolds not only after absence but during caretaking, suggesting that grief is not limited to a lack of presence. In other words, anticipatory grief creates a liminal space that is between life and death that can be emotionally devastating. 

Artistic:

In order to elaborate on this idea, I wanted to situate my work in previously established grieving traditions, reinterpreting them to encompass grief without death. Material practices of mourning, such as the creation of death masks, offer a historical framework for understanding how absence has been mediated through physical form. As discussed in “Beethoven’s Death Mask and a Short History of Face Masks,” death masks have a long history dating back to ancient times, including that of the infamous pharaoh Tutankhamun. Moving into the Renaissance, the audience for these impressions transitioned to the living, where “[death masks] are supposed to give strength to the bereaved and provide a picture of the deceased for the family tree.” I wanted to elaborate on this history by creating objects that echo the commemorative function of death masks while twisting them to represent the living, thus working in anticipatory grief.

Methods:

After determining the medium, I began looking into what casting faces entails. I knew that I wanted to cast live people that are familiar to the audience, in order to put our notion of a “familiar face” into question, thus creating conversations about what it means to be present. Therefore, volunteers from Arts Scholars were casted. The process of capturing faces involves the creation of a mold made from skin-safe material, in this case alginate, a carbohydrate derived from seaweed. Alginate, like jello, comes in powder form and then sets into a bouncy material when combined with water. This is applied to the face and covered with plaster bandages to ensure that the alginate stays in place. Finally, plaster is poured into this alginate-plaster bandage mould, creating a hard, sculpture-like form. Deciding that these pieces weren’t confrontational enough in their expression of death compared to life, I transferred images of the volunteers onto the casts. This created a fractured portrait of each volunteer, demonstrating how anticipatory grief, as represented by the plaster cast, can affect relationships and perception of one another.

Audience & Impact:

My project is intended for audiences who have experiences dealing with complex emotional situations, especially when it relates to grief, caretaking, and mental health. Whilst being a largely conceptual and contemporary work of art, I believe that my work can be experienced best by those that connect to its representation personally rather than artistically. Thus, the intended impact is to prompt recognition by echoing their own experiences with pre-demise grief, thus giving viewers a sense of validation by affirming that these feelings can exist long before loss becomes official. 

Acknowledgements:

Special thanks to Linnea Wurdack and Julie Kim, fellow '26 art scholars for volunteering to be casted. Thank you to Irene Park for her assistance and feedback throughout the process of creating this capstone.

References:

Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed, Edinburgh University Press, 2014.

Coelho, Alexandra, et al. “Family Caregivers’ Anticipatory Grief: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Its Multiple Challenges.” Qualitative Health Research, vol. 30, no. 5, Apr. 2020, pp. 693–703. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732319873330.

Death, Memory and Material Culture. Routledge, 2020. www.taylorfrancis.com, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003085164.

Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007. Vintage International Ser.

Laqueur, Thomas W. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. Princeton University Press, 2015. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc77h3r.

Rando, Therese A. “Anticipatory Grief: The Term Is a Misnomer but the Phenomenon Exists.” Journal of Palliative Care, vol. 4, nos. 1–2, Mar. 1988, pp. 70–73. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1177/0825859788004001-223.

Sedivy, Roland. “Beethoven’s Death Mask and a Short History of Face Masks.” Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, vol. 171, no. 15, Nov. 2021, pp. 391–96. Springer Link, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10354-021-00875-1.

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) - Works - Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. https://www.felixgonzalez-torresfoundation.org/works/untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.