Is death truly an unspeakable taboo?

For a long time, we have avoided speaking about death.

But why are we so afraid to talk about it?

Can silence truly ease our confusion about the end?

Recently, the exhibition “Bringing Death Back Into Life: How Will We Grow Old? How Will We Leave?”, initiated by the Medical Sociology Research Center of the School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University and hosted by MACA Art Center, confronts this ultimate question about life head-on.

Please don’t fear the heaviness of the theme — this is not a somber space of mourning. Instead, it uses death as a thread to invite each viewer into a reflective, spiritual realm rarely touched by public discourse.

Bringing together creators from diverse fields — including art, anthropology, sociology, medicine, and social work — the exhibition opens up an interdisciplinary conversation on end-of-life care and the wisdom of life and death.

"Bringing Death Back to Life: How Will We Grow Old? How Will We Depart?" Exhibition View, MACA Art Center, Beijing

01. A “Mandatory Course” That Challenges Taboos

How will we grow old? How will we leave this world? These ultimate questions often only become piercingly clear in the fading warmth of memories left by our closest loved ones. They should form the very core of life education, yet they have become a compulsory lesson we've collectively missed — and urgently need to make up for. In the heat of midsummer, this exhibition attempts to liberate the audience from the heavy cultural layers surrounding death, encouraging them to bravely confront life’s most significant final chapter.

The exhibition takes its title from a 2022 Lancet report, which warns that scientific advancement has led to an overreliance on medical intervention during the final stage of life, causing millions to suffer unnecessary pain at the end of their lives. At the center of the exhibition’s first floor stands artist Zhang Muchen’s interactive installation Breath, which continually reminds viewers of the patient’s struggle on the brink of life and death: as one approaches the center of the piece, the once steady mechanical breathing begins to accelerate and falter. At the moment the viewer comes close to the mask, the system abruptly halts—leaving only a piercing electronic buzz in its wake.

Zhang Muchen, Breath, 2014–2025. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center.

The relentless pursuit to prolong life seems to be a shared consensus shaped by traditional ethics and modern medicine. The works in this exhibition translate that process into a tangible spatial experience, thereby raising the question of personal agency at the end of life. Lu Guijun, Director of the Pain Department at Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, has spent years working at the frontline of life and death. He has taken action into his own hands—lying in a coffin himself and inviting friends and family to attend his mock “funeral”—in an effort to awaken broader public reflection on the idea of a “good death.”

Lu Guijun, “Holding My Own Funeral,” 2021. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center.

In a secluded corner space, six “Memory Bears” made from the clothing of the deceased quietly convey the longing of those who have lost loved ones. This process, which blends artistic creation with soulful dialogue, transforms intimate grief into a healing force that transcends the individual. These bears, symbolizing comfort and companionship, become a precious emotional outlet. Here, art acts like a healing injection, mending the gaps in memory, offering solace to the living, and inspiring a stronger, forward-looking spirit.

02. To Those “Not Yet Gone”

Death is not merely the end of an individual. In the exhibition’s preface, curators Zhou Wenjing and Yue Mingyue urge us to consider death from a collective perspective, highlighting its global political implications. Global capital shifts risks and environmental costs onto the Global South, while “death” signifies the comprehensive collapse of life along with social bonds, cultural memory, linguistic worlds, and ecological foundations.

“The end is not death, but forgetting”—the essence of political death lies in the systematic erasure of collective memory by power. Artist Jeremy Dennis’s photographic series Sacred Mountains focuses on the crisis of Indigenous sacred land dispossession, where colonial violence not only seizes land but also severs the transmission of memory. Masooma Khawaja, through textile collages that deconstruct traditional European and South Asian embroidery patterns, metaphorically reveals the fragmented trauma experienced by diasporic migrants.

Bringing Death Back into Life: How Will We Grow Old? How Will We Depart? Exhibition site, MACA Art Center, Beijing

The colonial system not only seized human spaces but also pushed the “original inhabitants” of nature to the brink of existence: Hervé Cherabon’s The Earth Will Keep Spinning, But We Will No Longer Be Here uses 3D data of plants destroyed by the Amazon fires as a foundation, employing digital technology to recreate a silent ecological extinction. Lin Lecheng’s refined black-and-white paintings depict the incredible resilience of life and the power of rebirth amid extreme conditions.

From a broader perspective, these profound artistic expressions do more than commemorate what has vanished—they fervently call upon us to see, to listen, and to embrace what is “not yet gone.” Hope lies in our valuing and protecting this precious “not yet disappeared.”

03. How we face death is how we face “life.”

Have you noticed the “little moths” resting in the corners of the exhibition hall? They are an installation created by artist Yun Feng. He heard from palliative care doctors that when patients are about to depart, medical staff often softly reassure them: “Walk toward the light.” This reflects that indescribable yet deeply persistent yearning in our lives—a longing for hope, for warmth, even when the final destination remains unknown.

Yun Feng, Walk Toward the Light, 2025. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center.

The academic advisor for this exhibition, Professor Jing Jun, a distinguished scholar from the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University, and his team have collected 146 end-of-life narratives over the past two years. Their research reveals a unique phenomenon called “reverse end-of-life care,” where those nearing death turn around to care for others. Even as life reaches its final moments, the emotional agency and will to care of the dying continue to illuminate those around them.

Song Min × Jing Jun, Reverse Care, 2024. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center.

Death is not a dark full stop but a crucial sequence in the complex coding of life—a necessary passage through which meaning circulates, settles, and ultimately finds rebirth in the world of the living. The collaborative work Rebirth Through the Body by Yue Mingyue and Jing Jun invites viewers to engage with the slow, ritualistic body movements around the prayer wheels on the plateau: gently turning the wheels, the dead are reborn without end. As Confucius said, “If we do not understand life, how can we know death?” Ultimately, we return to the origin of life and step into a new cycle.

Left: Yue Mingyue, Praying for Blessings and Fertility, 2018. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center

Right: Yue Mingyue × Jing Jun, Rebirth Through the Body, 2025. Image courtesy of MACA Art Center

To embrace the full scope of life means also to honestly acknowledge its end. Only by doing so can we live each moment of our limited time with greater clarity, courage, and profound meaning. During the exhibition, MACA Art Center also hosted numerous workshops and lectures related to life education and end-of-life care. These open and in-depth discussions fill a crucial gap in public life education.

This is not merely an extension of the exhibition—it is a gentle awakening and empowering call about the essence of life, open to everyone.

“Bringing Death Back into Life: How Will We Grow Old? How Will We Depart?” Exhibition site, MACA Art Center, Beijing

Text by: Rita
Edited by: Rita, Larry Z