Working together as the Belle Morte Collective, Larassa Kabel and Ben Easter have been creating performance based photographs for the Death in the Family series since the first one appeared in Juxtapoz Magazine in 2015. Based in the tradition of Victorian post-mortem photography, the Death in the Family series critically examines the artificial division humans make between themselves and the rest of nature. In Victorian post mortem photographs, the deceased were often posed in their finest clothes with family members. They were held and touched as if they were still alive. Though the photos are shocking to modern sensibilities, they were created with love and cherished by the family. This series does the same for animals who’s lives and deaths aren’t seen as equal to a human’s. The photographs use careful aesthetic consideration and physical tenderness to democratize grief across species and transform each animal into a unique individual worthy of memorialization.