ON DEATH AND DYING

In 2001 I spent three months in the stone desert in Jordan close to the ancient city of Petra. For centuries nobody has been living in this city any more, apart from beduins, who use the ancient structures for the needs of their nomad life. These structures are graves mainly, fantastic rock tombs with decorations, and simple quadrangular graves cut into the ground. Living with the beduins, I learned that sleeping in a grave has advantages: you are safe from wind and sand, and keep much warmer. 

I experienced a very strange sensation: lying on my back I could see a quadrangular opening to the stary sky above. It was comfortable, I felt the measurements of the grave matching my body. I was thinking about the dead person that once was put to rest here. I was taking his or her place. 

That was the beginning of an inner process leading to the ongoing project LEAVING THE FRAME. I visit people who are close to death and listen to them talking about this transition. I take their portraits. I collect experiences and try to learn about the big movement of leaving the human frame that awaits us all.