Although in modern western cultures death is considered to be final and therefore it is perceived as a tragic event, this is not the case in indigenous societies and in mythical thinking. Life and death are not taken as mutually exclusive and as total opposites but as two forms of being. The continuity of life and death – expressed by the paradoxical notion of ‘life after death’ – allows these cultural forms to consider death in a much less tragic way. In some Latin-American cultures the Day of the Dead is celebrated as a sort of festival. The skeleton art pieces engage in a dialogue with both the modern western and the indigenous mythical forms of dealing with death. The skeletons are made of paper cuts and inject a humorous element into the morbid situation. However, the paper is held to the background with needles. The needles make reference to pain and injury, a recurrent theme in other works as well. The sensation of the needle as they penetrate the skin acts as a sort of awakening which brings back reality with all its force.