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, 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.
Sharing Stories
There’s something about sharing stories of our loved ones that can ease the sharp edge of grief. Saying someone’s name, telling the world about them, etching them into the collective memory. There is something universal about wanting to ensure our loved ones are known, are remembered, that they don’t fade away.
Refrigerator Reliquary is concerned primarily with the stories as they relate to objects. Not things you find in a last will and testament, rather the objects found in pockets and car consoles, between pages of books and taped to refrigerator doors. Things you’d normally throw away, but instead find yourself gripped by an uncharacteristic bout of hoarding over:
Do I have any other pieces of his handwriting?
Mom saved my kindergarten report card, so maybe I should keep it?
These are the glasses she was wearing the last time we FaceTimed…
Refrigerator Reliquary invites you to sit in that pause, reflecting on the tangible items and the person behind them, and share the story.
How it Started
Maybe it was absolutely losing it when, after my grandma died, my aunt found the “stained glass” (cardboard) I’d made her when I was five that she’d kept.
Or the absurd surge of rage I felt over someone using the last of the single-use, leopard print hand towels my mom kept in the powder room. I didn’t get the chance to save one. Why did I even want one?
Or the stupid vase I made her in grade school she kept for years. I’m still struggling to know what to do that.
