'David Maisel’s large-scaled, otherworldly photographs chronicle the complex relationships between natural systems and human intervention, piecing together the fractured logic that informs them both.
Maisel’s aerial images of environmentally impacted sites explore the aesthetics and politics of open pit mines, clear-cut forests, and zones of water reclamation, framing the issues of contemporary landscape with equal measures of documentation and metaphor. As Leah Ollman states in the Los Angeles Times, “Maisel’s work over the past two decades has argued for an expanded definition of beauty, one that bypasses glamour to encompass the damaged, the transmuted, the decomposed.”
We looked at David Maisel's photographic work 'Library Of Dust' in photography specialisation, i was already familiar with this series of work as he was mentioned in black and white photography last year.
I think the 'Library of Dust' series is really amazing. Aswell as the story behind it.
The canisters are from the Oregon State Asylum. This operated until the early 1970's. The patients who died in the asylum were cremated and their ashes were kept in copper canisters. The Copper canisters left behind are ashes of the patients who were unclaimed by their families. The canisters were placed in a room on shelves when they were unclaimed and there they sat for over a century.
I find this story really sad, as the ashes were never collected by their loved ones, they were forgotten and left behind for over a century. Even though it's a sad story the canisters containing the ashes are really beautiful with vibrant colours. This occured due to the reaction of the ashes and the copper.
