Memento Mori

‘Memento Mori’, a series of timepieces, represented by candles in all shapes and sizes. They measure time in surprising ways, carrying a playful narrative about the inevitability of our mortality. They confront us in spiritual ways with our ephemeral existence, encouraging us to embrace life until we vanish.

Marre Moerel decided to go back to basics for making this light series: “Since time immemorial, humans have been using candles to illuminate their lives. Candles provide light and atmosphere, have been used for spiritual and celebratory experiences, all the while carrying the danger of setting the house on fire.” These contrasts inspired Marre Moerel. She stretches the limits of this most basic of lighting device and presents candles as surprising memento mori objects carrying messages about life and death: all earthly goods and pursuits are transient. Her choice for candles also reveals her interior monologue as a designer: “In our time, making things has become a highly problematic and controversial act: by creating stuff designers are held complicit in polluting the planet. Do we really need more stuff? Eventually it’s better to create spiritual experiences instead of material things.”

It may be clear, this brightly flickering collection carries existential thinking and design considerations key to our time. Moerel’s pyrometric experiments are playfully encouraging us to savour every moment. “Live now, for there will be nothing left afterwards.”