the epitaph project

the epitaph project is a traditional tombstone carved from slate, finished as a chalkboard, accompanied by a bronze chalk box and sited in Hollywood Forever Cemetery where passersby are invited to write an epitaph in chalk. These are photographed to illustrate projections of meaning upon self and death as well as introducing people to a public parkland that is virtually unused.
There’s something clarifying about composing or even thinking about one’s own epitaph. There can be a sense of self discovery to it as well as both humor and high seriousness.
In this way all spectators are also performers and the project, while attempting to engage taboos on death, is ultimately about life. Finally it is an open possibility lying in wait for whoever might pass.
the epitaph project exists in different sites and different forms. It existed first in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where I purchased a grave site and for many years tended it and where I still visit intermittently, especially every fall for Dia de los Muertos where I encounter many passersby in the night. The Cemetery produced a subtly instructive 3 minute video loop with narrative by Tim O’Gara about the project that you can view by clicking on the epitaph project : mirror below.
Duplicates of the epitaph project exist also in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio and The Fields sculpture Park in upstate New York. It also exists as a portable tombstone/chalkboard that is used to collect epitaphs at lectures, workshops and exhibitions. It existed for the summer of 2002 in Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC, and Spaces gallery in Cleveland. You can find more by going to www.epitaphproject.com.
Here you can find a selection of the over 300 4″x5″ prints of all the epitaphs that viewers have offered so far. Please notice in the backgrounds the different sites and situations where an epitaph was left. In Hollywood one sees the cemetery in the background, at Socrates the city across the river, in Spaces Gallery the brick wall behind the tombstone, and so on.
Some visitors leave epitaphs for themselves, others offer examples they have encountered in the past, and some use the form to express their personal relationship to the present. You may leave an epitaph by clicking on the “messages” section of this site.
The epitaph project also exists here on this site with you now.