My friend, J Randall Updegrove and I discuss photography on an almost daily basis. We also both read everything we can get our hands on. A while back we were discussing my Road Side Memorial project, and Randall mentioned something he had seen in Utne Reader, and started describing a photo project about cans of cremated remains from a psychiatric hospital. I'm thinking...wait a minute...I've just read about the exact same thing!. Yes, I had seen a review of this project in Aperture Magazine.
It's David Maisel's series Library of Dust. Gorgeous photos of copper cans that contain the cremated remains of unclaimed ashes of psychiatric patients from Oregon Sate Hospital. The cans have bloomed into vivid shades of blues, greens, and silver, taking on an almost artistic presence of the patient within.
David Maisel
2 comments:
Wow. Crazy. Thanks for the heads up.
Thank you for showing me these. I was really moved by Maisel's photographs. They felt like memorials to me (likely a merger of his images and my personal experiences). And respectful. They are landscapes: rivers, volcanoes, snow covered mountains, and one that looked like Hokusai's famous wave.
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