“The work – for me – is not explicitly about environmental sustainability
as we usually understand it. It is about our own human sustainability – how do we keep going,
how do we find joy, how do we view our inevitable ends?”

Maria Möller used her residency to realize a project called One Last Time, a photo-based series about mortality, joy, and second chances. Developing a ritual that compares life cycles with waste cycles, Maria sourced six objects from household clean-outs and paired each one with a person in her life who is or has been close to their own mortality through age or illness. Maria worked collaboratively with each participant to stage a photo shoot during which the discarded object could fulfill its purpose “one last time.” After each photo shoot, the participant traveled to the recycling center to return their object to the waste stream.