The Social Life of a Dead Language is a multi-year visual arts project that considers the idea of Latin as a “dead” language. While scholars often locate its disappearance between the 6th and 9th centuries AD, the streets of Rome tell a different story: Latin appears in church inscriptions, water fountains, and graffiti tags. Since 2022, I have explored how Latin lives on in present day Rome. The work traces its social life, revealing how a supposedly lost tongue continues to speak in unexpected ways.