Hortus MortEM (Death Garden)

16mm film, 2017

An experimental 16mm film shot in Brooklyn, NY in with support from Mono No Aware.

In Hortus Mortem (Death Garden), I sought out often-overlooked places of power and liminality to discover the “spirit of place” where I live. Images shift between roses planted over graves or sidewalk beds, a grotto of saints built by an Italian Immigrant, and my rather lively neighborhood cemetery. I am interested in these places that are sustained by small, gentle acts of tending and care in an urban metropolis. Living on the border of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens I am interested in the liminal spaces where the East River meets the shore and the living visit the dead.