Ashes to Ashes: Art, Memory and the Fragile Act of Reconciliation
- ARTE.M
- 7 days ago
- 9 min read
Some conflicts do not end when the violence stops.They continue quietly — inside families, cities, classrooms, communities, and memory itself.
The Erasmus+project Roots & Routes was born from this difficult space: the question of how dialogue can exist in societies marked by fear, polarization, silence, or inherited trauma. Not dialogue as a political slogan, but as something fragile, human, and deeply uncomfortable. How do people begin speaking again after years of division? How do communities coexist when pain has shaped their identities? And perhaps the hardest question of all: can art help reconcile what appears irreconcilable?
One of the case studies explored within the research surrounding Roots & Routes brought us to South Africa and to artist Lize-Mari de Abreu, whose work for the AIDS Foundation of South Africa transformed awareness into direct social confrontation.
During our conversation, we asked her how the idea behind the 2016 project Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust (“Face Value”) first emerged, and why the team chose such an emotionally difficult artistic approach to speak about AIDS victims in South Africa.
She explains that, at the time, much of the existing communication aimed at young audiences was losing its impact within the constant flow of advertising, safe-sex campaigns, and repetitive public messaging about what people should or should not do. According to the artist, the conversation had stopped creating meaningful emotional engagement.
This realization became one of the starting points for the project.
So we wanted to approach awareness differently — through art. We wanted viewers to first believe they were looking at a portrait or artwork, and only afterwards discover the deeper connection with the AIDS Foundation and the lives behind the images.
Within the research framework of Roots & Routes, we became interested in artistic practices capable of addressing stigma, inherited prejudice, and social division through emotional experience rather than information alone.
Some artistic projects are comfortable to observe.Others are almost impossible to look at without feeling disturbed.This case belongs to the second category.
It shocks, frightens, raises ethical questions, and forces the viewer into an uncomfortable emotional space.
Because the artist chose to work with the cremation ashes of young Africans who died from AIDS — and with soil taken from the grave of a deceased boy — transforming human remains and funeral material into portraits of people society had already learned not to see.
When speaking with the artist, one question naturally appeared first:
How does an idea like this even emerge? How do human ashes become an artistic medium?
Lize-Mari de Abreu explains:
“The concept of the exhibition was to use the ashes from the cremation of young people who had passed away from AIDS, or the soil placed onto the coffin during funerals, as an artistic medium. These materials were used to create portraits of people who had died far too young. Through this process, we tried to honor and humanize them, showing them not through statistics, but through dignity, memory, and presence.”
The process itself became part of the emotional weight of the project.
“Working with ashes and soil was extremely challenging because there was no color and no traditional artistic method for using these materials. To create detail and depth, I used glue to place tiny dots and spaces between them, allowing facial expressions and character to emerge through texture and contrast.”
The finished portraits later appeared throughout the city — in foyers, galleries, and public spaces — confronting audiences not through direct activism, but through curiosity and emotional shock.
But the deeper conflict behind the exhibition was not only about death or illness.
As de Abreu describes, the project also exposed the painful social divisions surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa:
“AIDS has often been stigmatized as either a ‘Black disease’ or a ‘gay disease,’ and one of the important things we tried to challenge was exactly that misconception, because it is simply not the reality.”
And this is perhaps where the project becomes especially important in the context of reconciliation studies.
Because reconciliation is not always about agreement.Sometimes it begins by forcing society to look directly at the people it has erased, feared, judged, or refused to mourn.
But after the initial shock of the concept and the medium itself, another layer of the project begins to emerge.
Because Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust was never only about AIDS awareness. It was also about race, inherited fear, religion, social separation, and the invisible systems of prejudice that continue shaping communities long after public campaigns end.
This is precisely where the project becomes deeply connected to the questions explored through Roots & Routes:How do societies begin dialogue when fear and stigma are already embedded inside everyday culture?How do people reconcile not only with each other, but with the beliefs they inherited?
Continuing our conversation with artist Lize-Mari de Abreu — who developed the project together with the creative team of McCann Worldgroup South Africa — the discussion gradually moved away from artistic technique and toward the uncomfortable social realities surrounding the epidemic itself.
One of the first issues she describes is the racial dimension of AIDS stigma in South Africa.
“At the same time, South Africa’s demographics mean that statistically more Black people die from AIDS, since around 80% of the population is Black, while only about 10% is white and the rest mixed. For me personally, being white and not having grown up with AIDS directly affecting my immediate family or social circle, this project forced me to confront many uncomfortable realities and questions.”
The project therefore became not only an act of representation, but also an act of personal confrontation — particularly inside a society where AIDS had long been associated with racialized stereotypes and social distancing.
But race was only one part of the conflict.
Another major challenge emerged through religion, spirituality, and beliefs surrounding death itself.
“Many communities and cultural groups in South Africa have very strong beliefs regarding death and the treatment of human remains. People would ask: how can you use someone’s ashes? How can you handle them, or turn them into art?”
In many communities, cremation itself was considered unacceptable or spiritually dangerous. This forced the creative team to rethink how the exhibition could continue while remaining respectful toward different cultural realities.
“That is partly why the idea of using soil from the funeral became an important alternative. It allowed us to continue communicating the message of awareness in a way that felt more culturally acceptable and respectful.”
What makes the story especially striking is that these tensions did not appear only in conservative or rural environments.
According to de Abreu, even within the urban creative agency environment — spaces usually perceived as progressive and open-minded — fear and discomfort remained deeply present.
“Some Black staff members refused to enter the room where the artworks were displayed because of the association with ashes and death.”
At this point, the exhibition stopped functioning merely as an awareness campaign.
It became a living social experiment around grief, memory, race, spirituality, and coexistence.
And perhaps this is where reconciliation work truly begins — not in comfortable consensus, but inside difficult conversations people normally avoid having at all.
One of the most difficult aspects of reconciliation is that prejudice often survives longer than the conflict itself.
Sometimes societies become so accustomed to fear and stereotypes that entire groups of people begin to be associated with illness, danger, shame, or guilt. In these situations, the problem is no longer only medical or political — it becomes deeply cultural and emotional.
When discussing the social reaction surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa, we asked Lize-Mari de Abreu how strongly racial stigma influenced both the project and the public response to it.
She explains:
“Another conflict we faced in South Africa was the deep stigma surrounding AIDS, because for a long time it was stereotypically viewed as either a ‘Black people’s disease’ or a ‘gay disease.’ As a result, many people would automatically assume that if a Black person was ill, malnourished, or died young, it must be because of AIDS. This created a strong racial divide, especially among communities or schools where young people were not properly educated about the disease or did not encounter these realities in everyday life.”
The exhibition therefore confronted not only silence around death, but also the dangerous idea that illness somehow “belongs” to a specific race, identity, or social group.
“There was this dangerous idea that illness somehow ‘belongs’ to a skin colour, when in reality it does not. AIDS does not choose race, gender, or social background, but the stigma around it created fear, prejudice, and separation between communities.”
Another painful reality surrounding reconciliation work is that silence often protects harmful myths for generations.
In communities where fear, shame, and lack of education dominate public conversation, misinformation can become stronger than facts themselves. And when entire societies avoid speaking openly about illness, trauma, or sexuality, dangerous beliefs begin shaping real human lives.
When discussing the social background surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa, we asked Lize-Mari whether the project also encountered myths and cultural misconceptions connected to the disease.
She explains:
“Another difficult issue was the presence of myths and superstitions that existed within some communities. One particularly tragic belief was that a person with AIDS could be cured by having intercourse with a child who did not have the disease. In reality, this only led to the transmission of HIV to children and caused enormous suffering and trauma.”
The silence surrounding these realities often made public dialogue almost impossible.
“There were also cases where HIV was transmitted from mother to child through breastfeeding. These were painful and sensitive realities that people often avoided discussing openly, which made the conversation around AIDS even more difficult.”
In this sense, the exhibition was not only confronting the disease itself, but also the fear, denial, misinformation, and cultural stigma surrounding it.
“Part of the challenge of the exhibition was therefore not only to create awareness about the disease itself, but also to confront the silence, fear, misinformation, and cultural stigma that surrounded it.”
The exhibition took place in 2016.And perhaps one of the strangest realizations during our research was how quickly even powerful human stories begin disappearing from public memory.
Information vanishes, links expire, campaigns dissolve into fragments of archives and award pages. Yet the conflicts themselves remain painfully present.
This raised another important question for us.
As someone who participated directly in the creation of this work — not only as an artist, but also as a witness, a woman, and a mother — how does Lize-Mari de Abreu believe artistic tools can still function today in times of war, polarization, and humanitarian crisis? How can art continue carrying difficult conversations into spaces where ordinary language no longer reaches people?
She reflects:
“We can also utilise this concept to bring awareness to other crises, conflicts, and humanitarian issues around the world. The next step or evolution of this idea could be to visit war zones or areas affected by conflict, where there is rubble, destroyed buildings, dust, ashes, and debris — materials that become physical evidence of violence and human suffering.”
For de Abreu, the material itself becomes part of the testimony.
“These raw materials could then be used to create portraits of innocent people who became victims of conflict without ever having a choice in it. In a way, the material itself carries memory, trauma, and testimony. By transforming it into portraits, the work becomes both a memorial and a form of awareness.”
What becomes especially important here is the intention behind the artistic gesture itself.
Not spectacle.Not aestheticization of suffering.But remembrance.
“The idea is not to sensationalize tragedy, but to preserve the humanity of the people behind the headlines — to create a final gesture of remembrance for those who never chose to be part of war, destruction, or political conflict.”
The final works were photographed by South African fine art photographer Michael Meyersfeld, whose long-standing practice explores memory, social tension, fragility, and the psychological landscapes of contemporary South Africa.
A veteran of both commercial and fine art photography, Meyersfeld is known for his stark and emotionally charged visual language, exhibited internationally through galleries, museums, and public collections. His work often addresses themes of transience, urban anxiety, identity, silence, and the aftermath of social conflict — making his collaboration with Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust especially significant within the broader visual narrative of memory and reconciliation.
Sources:
FACE VALUE / ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST
Despite the difficult and controversial nature of the project, Face Value became one of the most internationally recognized healthcare awareness campaigns to emerge from South Africa in 2016.
The work received recognition across multiple major international advertising, healthcare, and creative industry awards, including The Global Awards, The Clios, IPA Awards, African Cristal Awards, and Cannes Lions Health archives. The original artworks reportedly still remain displayed inside the AIDS Foundation South Africa headquarters.
Project Structure
The campaign consisted of two poster executions:
“Ashes to Ashes” — portrait of an adult woman illustrated using ashes from a cremated body.
“Dust to Dust” — portrait of a young boy illustrated using soil from his grave.
The works were originally created for an AIDS Foundation South Africa stakeholders meeting and later entered into international award competitions under the collective campaign title Face Value.
Confirmed Credits
Agency: McCann Worldgroup South AfricaClient: AIDS Foundation South Africa
Key creative team:
Mick Blore — Chief Creative Officer
Bruce Murphy — Executive Creative Director
Stephen Pollock — Creative Director
Lize-Mari de Abreu — Creative Group Head / Illustrator
Mogorosi Mashilo — Strategic Manager
Thandiwe Zondo — Print Production Manager
Award Record (Confirmed)
The Global Awards 2016 — WINNER
Category: Outdoor / Best Use of Media: Outdoor
One of only 41 Global Awards selected from 145 international finalists across 24 countries.
McCann Worldgroup South Africa represented South Africa as the country’s only finalist in this category.
Additional Recognitions & Archives
IPA Awards — confirmed through juror biography references
African Cristal Awards — confirmed through juror biography references
Cannes Lions Health / The Work archive — both executions archived publicly
Cannes Lions Archive Descriptions
Dust to Dust — official campaign description:
“We handcrafted this poster using the soil that covered the grave of a little boy who died from Aids, to create a portrait of him, paying tribute to him and the thousands of others just like him that have died from Aids.”
The archive also describes the technical process behind the work as an unusually difficult form of material illustration involving layering, texture control, adhesive timing, and the absence of traditional tonal methods.
Comments