Going to a Funeral 101

Inspired by one of the things my grandmother said to my mother before dying “When I die, first go to the hairdresser” this piece explores the odd intimate space where death and beauty meet. That offhand, almost humorous comment opened a portal into how we prepare for loss, how we perform grief, and how rituals around appearance can give us a sense of control when everything else slipping through our fingers. 

The work is a 3 minutes video tutorial with tips on how to dress and apply makeup for a funeral. The YouTubers perform sadness in front of the camera switching between forced calm and out of scripted sincerity. A mother yells instructions mid-breakdown while her daughter quietly shares that her teammate has died in a terrible car crash. The result is a surreal blend of aesthetic and mourning, spectacle and sincerity.

Following the video, large-format portraits of my grandmother are displayed. Her eyes are covered with real comments pulled from the YouTube tutorials where strangers share stories of loss, offer condolences, or talk about how happy they are to have finally found the makeup tutorial they were looking for. Platforms often seen as shallow or purely aesthetic become unexpected spaces of collective vulnerability and grief. This project reflects on how we navigate mourning when it becomes a public, even performative act especially in digital spaces where beauty, identity, and pain are constantly on display and coexist.

2015
02:53’

SCREENINGS
2018: Bad Art Festival, Bones and Pearl Studio, London, England.

2017: Kontrakultural Festival, Lima, Perú; 58 Peruvian Female Photographers, Convento Santa Catalina, Arequipa, Perú; 58 Peruvian Female Photographers, Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso, Lima, Perú; Sobredosis, La Quinta del Sordo, Madrid, Spain.

2016: Pop Up Kino Fest, GlogauAIR, Berlin, Germany; Hacia donde mirar, EFTI, Madrid; Samples Festival, Helsinki, Finland and Mexico DF, México; nodoCCS Videoart Festival, Caracas, Venezuela; Visions in the Nunnery, London, England; Transcinema Lima, Peru; Más Allá del Cementerio, Espacio Proa, Madrid, España; Bad Art 2, Stour Space, London, England; Bad Art 1, Bones and Pearl Studio, London, England.

2015: De tal palo tal astilla, Tarazona Foto, Zaragoza, Spain; Fotoproyectos, Efti, Madrid, Spain.