"Der­ived from dis­parate sources, but primar­ily from auc­tions and spe­cial­ist deal­ers in Amer­ica, the cer­tificates have all had an end title from a film of the corre­spond­ing year laser etched into them. Each spells out “The End”. It is a very static cin­ematic expe­r­i­ence. A film can carry us away into another world, can even connect or reconnect us with the dead. For as long as these per­son­ages are on screen, they seem to be ’alive’—at least ani­mate. The artist has selected birth cer­tificates of the dead. It is a closed loop. Death is cut out of birth- ‘The end’ to our Apollo­nian bureau­cracy. The exercise reinforces Thomas Fuller’s mis­er­able asser­tion that “birth is the be­gin­ning of death.” -- Text from Galerie Judin

The primal inspiration for this installation stems from an earlier work, titled I Hope we Never Die/ So Do I/ Do You Think There is Any Chance of it?, the artist had originally created in 2010. Having just experienced the passing of his father, Clegg keenly felt the questions of existence and identity being the most prevalent during his time of mourning. For this particular work, Clegg had purchased 81 human birth certificates online, into which he then had the striking and famous final words, taken from American movies of the 1930’s and 1940’s, “The End”, thus announcing the conclusion of a movie, laser-cut into the surface of the complete set of purchased birth certificates.