In the 14th century, the notion of death transitioned from an idea of a temporary resting period, to a retched inevitable fact of existence. This idea was largely attributed to the Black Death and the public living among a collective of decaying bodies. After decomposition and decay finished embracing the corpse, human remains were disinterred from their grave to accommodate for the newly dead and placed in a Charnel House - a secondary holy storage space for human remains. With the accumulating dead came more embellished displays of solidifying the concept of Memento Mori - the remembrance of your mortality. Artists and architects were commissioned to convert these simple bone-housing structures into elaborate symbolic examples of the transience of human life called Ossuaries (os Latin for “bone”). The Church called for the confrontation with one’s own mortality, questioning the time remaining as living, and the uncertain timelessness of death. The Counter-Reformation in 1545 focused their attention towards visuals of personifying death and to suppress thoughts of pleasure or joy, and continually confront themselves to their inevitable demise. Charnel houses and Ossuaries multiplied throughout Europe during the sixteenth century.
 
This is photographic survey of a funerary practice of personifying death created by history, bridging the social division between the living and the dead. These images come from fourteen locations. This work and research began in 2012, and was completed in 2017. The majority of printed images were created in the photogravure process. The word "gravure" is of Germanic origin meaning grave, or underground. 

Copperplate Photogravure + Silver Gelatin + Palladium. Varying Print Sizes (reference images descriptions).