Life Eternal

Life Eternal tells three intertwining stories about immortality. The first story is about Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon and his legendary search for the Fountain of Youth. The second tells us of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. The third story takes up James Bedford, the first person to undergo cryogenic freezing in hopes of future revival.

Moving across centuries, these three historical characters enter into a timeless conversation with each other on their last few days of life. At the same time, Life Eternal touches upon the complex and troubling historical themes that jump out so vividly from their stories – colonialism, exploitation, and techno-utopianism. This work is a poetic dialogue on the eternal conversation on time and our attitude toward it.