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The Safe Handling of Contaminated Artifacts 2020
This dual guide acts as an archive of cinerary urns from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and a manual on dealing with corpses that’ve been exposed to radioactive isotopes. The contrast questions the necessity of archiving in lieu of the Earth's projected doom.
“Why archive when there may not be a future at all?” became the guiding question for this book. Do contemporary artist’s focus on archives as a medium of nostalgia for a stable past? Every New York Times article paints our future as darker and more painful than the last. Every heatwave or earthquake signals that time may truly be up.
This book was created as a lighthearted way of dealing with thoughts of looming choas. Together, the archive and manual exist as one form, impossible to view one without the other.
Below are selections from the archive including the original introduction:
