Donna J. Wan

Death Wooed Us Suicide is difficult to talk about. Most try to avoid it. Yet some of us have personally experienced despair so great that we thought about it as an option. We have also known others who have sadly succumbed to it. In 2011 after the birth of my daughter I developed severe postpartum depression and considered taking my own life. I imagined I would drive to the California coast where I could look at the magnificent ocean and jump off a cliff. Since then I have recovered and learned that many suicidal people have similar inclinations: they travel to beautiful well-known or obscure natural places to end their lives. The photographs in this project attempt to capture the views of these settings. Using research gathered from media reports, I found locations in the Bay Area and travelled to them. I walked along the paths taken by these people before they ended their lives. These images were taken from bridges, beaches and overlooks. I purposely photographed from the perspective of looking up at the sky, down at the water or crags, or straight ahead but far away, thinking that these views might have resembled the ones seen by others moments before dying. Many of my images have a hazy and elusive quality, which I believe reflects the clouded state of mind of the suicidal. There are some who may think that my photographs romanticize these places of death. This is not my intention. Death is not beautiful – in fact, jumping from a bridge 200 feet high is a violent way to die. Yet the sublimity of these places continues to lure people to them, and I believe that there have been others like me, who wanted to die surrounded by a beautiful landscape. I do not intend for my work to glorify the allure of these places. Instead, I hope that it may offer a glimpse into the minds of those who may have thought that dying by these beautiful places was a peaceful way to end their suffering. As the poet Louise Gluck wrote in “Cottonmouth Country,” "Death wooed us, by water, wooed us By land…"