A Ritual for Remembrance,
a Digital Ofrenda,
a Virtual Museum.
Refrigerator Reliquary is a project about how ordinary, day-to-day items can become suddenly sacred when someone we love dies.
It’s about the things our dead kept close, objects where the primary significance is that they mattered to someone we love, and the impossible question of what to do with those items when that person dies.
This project is about sharing stories of grief and love, told through these objects.
Backstory
Years ago, when my mom asked me to help organize the storage room, tucked among holiday decorations and suitcases, I found three not-small boxes filled with mine and my brother's elementary and middle school artwork and schoolwork. After negotiation (me) and tears (her), we reduced it to one small box: "Cole and Hunter's school and art that Mom wants to keep for some insane reason," I wrote in Sharpie.
The box remained unopened until October 2024, a year and a half after she died.