In Touch
by Selva Aparicio
Selva Aparicio, Tejo (Hopscotch) (detail), 2018. Steel, felt, and Portland cement casts from human dead donors; 2 x 192 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Robert Chase Heishman.Thinking about death
During the pandemic, we’ve all been thinking about death. Some of us have lost a loved one in isolation without being able to say goodbye. It can be scary and lonely to think about dying, but talking to each other about people who are gone and even writing to those people can help. Have you ever had someone you love die? If you had one more chance to talk to a dead loved one, what would you say? Artist Selva Aparicio is gathering letters to lost loved ones to bring together into a book to help us feel connected to one another while thinking about death.
About The Artist
Selva Aparicio is an interdisciplinary artist working across installation, sculpture, and performance to create artwork that digs deeper into ideas of memory, death, intimacy and mourning. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 and her MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 2017. Aparicio's work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The International Museum of Surgical Science; Yale Center for British Art; Can Mario Museum, Spain; CRUSH Curatorial, New York; Roots & Culture, Chicago; The Kyoto International Craft Center, Japan; Instituto Cervantes, New York; and the Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona. She was awarded the Juncture Fellowship in Art and International Human Rights in 2016, the Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize in 2017, and received a MAKER Grant from the Chicago Artist Coalition in 2020. She was also named one of the 2020 breakout artists in Chicago by NewCity Art and is a current artist in residence at BOLT.