Dates：2022/06/21 ~ 2023/02/05
Opening Hours : 10: 00 - 17: 00（Closed on Mondays, open as usual on consecutive holidays, and will be closed until the next day.）
Location：6F Special Exhibition Areas I
Admission：$300
Website：https://www.mwr.org.tw/2022lifedeath
“Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon between dark and light.”
—Kenneth Kramer, The Sacred Art of Dying
During this period marked by war and disease, we have seemingly never been closer to death. Unfortunately, the fear of death far outweighs imaginations about the unknown. While people’s understandings and imaginations of death were shaped by natural phenomena during earlier stages of civilization, concepts for an afterworld were later constructed through religious views on life and death that revealed a more holistic view of life.
On one hand, people seek meaning through religious perspectives on life and death. On the other hand, their rational sides gradually seek to separate death from their daily lives. Through technological means, they pursue an ideal world where death no longer exists. Nevertheless, we must ask this question: Is death a source of suffering in life, or a necessary factor for living a meaningful life?
This is exactly the long-term mission of the Museum of World Religions: enable people to reflect on their inner selves by drawing from the perspectives of life and death of different religions. The Life Education special exhibition takes viewers into the different phases of life. Some examples of the exhibition’s themes include “The Active Ageing Troupe–Lifelong, Intense Passion” in 2019, “Adventure of Love and Courage” about birth and different phases of growth in 2020, and “Love and Marriage–World Gods of Love” about romantic challenges for adults in 2021. This year’s special exhibition series, Bright as Night, Dark as Day–A Walk with the Death, features a discussion about “closure” in life.
As the pandemic and war continues to change lives around the world, why don’t we go on a journey into the unknown and explore the afterlife following the footsteps of those before us? What will be waiting for us on the other side if the end of life actually leads to a new beginning? The special exhibition, Bright as Night, Dark as Day, is an experiential journey through life. We cordially invite viewers to imagine life and death through both knowledge- and experience-based perspectives. This will not only serve as a journey through death, but also a new opportunity for rebirth amid the current darkness.
