Flowers are often seen as symbols of memory, serving as a connection between the living and the deceased. As portrayed in the film Coco, "Death is not the end of life, forgetting is the end of life." In this project, I explore how flowers and plants act as mediums of remembrance across cultures.

In the UK, laying flowers at cemeteries is a common daily ritual, reflecting ongoing remembrance. In contrast, China’s Qingming Festival emphasizes periodic rituals of ancestor worship. This cultural comparison inspired my investigation into how symbolic objects like flowers preserve the memory of the deceased.

Using Brompton Cemetery in London as my case study, I documented over 100 tombstones, observing the diversity of sacrificial plants and their states—fresh, withered, or blending naturally into the environment. These observations reflect whether the deceased remain present in the memory of the living.

For this project, I collected petals, leaves, and objects from the cemetery to create cyanotype prints. I layered tombstone portraits with flowers and plants, allowing natural movements to shape the imagery over time. The blank spaces in the cyanotype, left by plants covering parts of the image, symbolize forgetting, while the dyed sections represent the enduring marks of memory. Finally, I used leaf juice from the cemetery to stain the prints, merging the organic materials with the narrative of remembrance.