Emma Hansson

“Memento Mori” is a contemporary continuation of the still life and vanitas tradition, where objects make the presence and absence of time visible. Whereas historical vanitas paintings froze time in paintings, I instead work materially and three-dimensionally where multiple layers of time exist simultaneously.

This degree project is a work of reconciliation between myself and time, where I must meet it as a friend rather than an enemy. How do you live when everything is finite? The objects are inspired by the vanitas tradition, but are also personally rooted in me and my family, while touching on the universal experiences of memory, loss, aging, interrupted time, the present, life and death.

In my contemporary still life, I portray three of the faces of time – “Time that never was”, “Time that is now” and “Time that has been”. A central part of the work is also how I, as a former florist, remember events and people in my life through flowers. They are like memory bearers; therefore, each object has a main flower in its design.