what is this project?

Pieces of You is a visual grief map, which is an intimate digital journal and collective memorial that lives both in your pocket and on the web. Users can mark locations, attach images, and leave memories tied to the people they've lost, building a personal map of grief that can remain private or be shared publicly with the world.

The project is rooted in a simple but profound idea–grief is not the absence of love, simply it is love with nowhere else to go. Ocean Vuong writes about how in Vietnamese, I miss you and I remember you are nearly the same phrase, and that tension lives at the heart of this project. Pieces of You gives that invisible weight of grief, a place to land.

why did I make this?

The goal is to create space for grief that is both deeply personal and quietly communal. Grief is an emotion everyone goes through, yet sometimes feels too specific and personal, which can be isolating. This gentle reminder that everyone is going through some sort of grief, and you are not alone in the process. When a memory is shared publicly, strangers may discover they've stood in the same place, held the same object, or loved someone the same way. These small recognitions, like a random piece of graffiti on the street, oranges in the grocery store or a street sign— these unexpected points of connection between people who have never met. There is such tenderness and vulnerability when even the most trivial things can be connected to others. How a place or an object can be so intimate yet have the potential to hold the same emotional weight to someone else.

-love, merlin