Library of Dust

Photographs by David Maisel

These photographs, by David Maisel, are of canisters holding the human remains of mentally ill patients, left in a storage room which was flooded multiple times over many decades. From Oregon State Hospital - as depicted in the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

 The colors are created from a mixture of the copper on the containers and phosphates, calcium (from the bones) and sulfates, with smaller percentages of potassium, sodium and chloride (the ashes) combined with the corroding acid in the groundwater from the flooding.

David Maisel states, " I am seeking to give those who lived with mental illness a presence that encourages their existence in ways that were impossible in their lifetimes.”

Here is what amazes me! 

These look as if they could be photographs taken from the Hubble Space Telescope. The colors create a swirling that is very similar to photographs of galaxies. We are all made up of the same materials, and we all revert back to our origins, but each of us also carries our own specific affect on the world.

http://www.davidmaisel.com/works/lod.asp
http://jessiesimmondsfinalyear.blogspot.com/2010/11/library-of-dust.html