Saturday, August 16, 2008

Library of Dust

In 1913, Maisel explained, an Oregon state psychiatric institution began to cremate the remains of its unclaimed patients. Their ashes were then stored inside individual copper canisters and moved into a small room, where they were stacked onto pine shelves.


[. . .]

Over time, however, the canisters have begun to react chemically with the human ashes held inside them; this has thus created mold-like mineral outgrowths on the exterior surfaces of these otherwise gleaming cylinders.

There was a certain urgency to the project, then, as "the span of time that these canisters are going to be in this state is really finite," Maisel explained in the Archinect interview, "and the hospital is concerned that they're now basically corroding."


[. . .]

David Maisel's photographs of nearly 110 funereal copper canisters are a mineralogical delight. Bearded with a frost of subsidiary elements, their surfaces are now layered, phosphorescent, transformed. Unsettled archipelagos of mineral growths bloom like tumors from the sides and bottoms -- but is that metal one sees, or some species of fungus? The very nature of these canisters becomes suspect.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow... its strange that they chose copper to put the ashes in. It is well know that out of all th non ferris metals copper is the most reactive to just about everything - I am not surprised that the canisters got a patina like that - I wonder what was running through the minds of the decision makers... obviously not very much...
The pictures are beautiful however...

Katie said...

What a lovely essay, and the pictures are spectacular. I think I'll have to add that book to my list.

Anonymous said...

A bit eerily Lovecraftianish...

I'd want one of those corroded, cool-looking, copper cans on my shelf of strange artifacts, myself, if it weren't for the cremated remains, inside. Brrrr...

Guess I could dump 'em in the pool, when nobody's looking... 8^}