Hymns of Death
Size:
20x32 inches
Materials: Silver Salt Gelatin Etching
Year of work: 2023
Description:
What if fear of the end is what brings us to life?
This project began with a question: how do we live fully, knowing it all ends? Inspired by Heidegger’s idea that death gives life meaning, Liu created a series that dissolves image from surface, forcing us to confront what’s slipping away. Using silver salt gelatin etching, the original photographs were eroded, their edges pulled apart, blurred, or falling away entirely.
The effect is raw and unsettling, ghost-like remnants of a moment that once was. Yet within the corrosion, there is beauty. In the falling away, something new takes shape. Liu captures that tension between presence and absence, fear and release. This is not about death as loss, but death as transition, a process we all face, alone but not unseen.