The separation

In the first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, death was briefly summarized as ""the separation of the soul and the body"". These words, devoid of factual meaning, are seemingly left open for interpretation. Originally, this enigmatic definition helped to inspire ""The Separation"", an installation work focused on the idea of the soul's severance from the body. Although I have no convictions about what happens to the soul after death, I have more than once observed the Russian Orthodox mourning ritual in which people gather in commemoration and pray for forty days until the soul is believed to have severed its earthly ties and completed its arduous journey into the afterlife. Conceptually, I was not interested in making a religious statement. Instead, my aim is to convey the soul's vulnerability in the hands of death according to Eastern Orthodox religion. * ...for in the course of the two days the soul is permitted to roam the earth, wherever it wills, in the company of the angels that are with it. Therefore, the soul, loving the body, sometimes wanders about the house in which his body had been laid out, and thus spends two days like a bird seeking its nest. The installation consists of three hanging wooden panels in the form of a tryptic. Lacking religious images, this tryptic is meant to provide little comfort in its meaning. From behind the center panel, which resembles a boarded window, beams of light pass and illuminate the space around the viewer. The sound in coordination with the moving light tells the story of a wandering soul on the other side as it moves towards solace. * Saint Macarius of Alexandria