In my work, I am exposed to others’ suffering, their loss, sometimes even their death; I feel I am a witness. I feel that my role – my responsibility – is to create an archive of our collective memory. I think this is partly due to a sense of responsibility. Maybe we only ever become aware that these people exist in their moment of suffering, and that this moment invalidates our excuse. We can no longer say that we did not know. I also feel that in the space, so delicate and so fragile, that death inhabits, a space in which I have, sometimes, both the privilege and the misfortune to enter, it is possible to connect with the other in a way that somehow goes beyond words, cultures, differences. For a moment you are naked, facing each other, naked before the reality and the mystery of death. In that instant, I feel that I am looking at something that I can not quite see, but that is staring back at me. This exchange allows us to experience something that is both universal and deeply intimate.
In the death of another, there is a loss to us all.
Paolo Pellegrin
Text from the book “Alors que je mourais” (“While I was dying”), Actes Sud, 2007.