This American photographer is no stranger to controversy, her first book ‘Immediate Family’ nearly got her arrested and now in the project ‘What Remains’ she details over eighty images her reflection on mortality and death of the human body. The images were taken at the University of Tennessee’s anthropological facility where the body is left in an outdoor situation and studied as it decomposes which takes months even years.
Mann says in her interview with the Guardian News paper (2010) “If there’s any time when you’re vulnerable, it’s when you’re dead. In life, those people had pride and privacy. I felt sorry for them. I thought if they knew I was taking photos, without them having a chance to comb their hair or put their teeth in, they’d die of shame. So I expected critics to ask: is this right?
“I was ready with my answer: all these people had signed release forms. I’ve done the same now, donated my body for research. But then I discovered that some of the corpses were street people who hadn’t signed releases. And of course even those who did sign probably thought the photos would be scientific, not artsy-fartsy. So though I was given a free hand – ‘Go on,’ they said, when a fresh batch arrived, ‘unzip the body bags and get them out’ – I decided to keep the subjects anonymous. I didn’t want to aestheticise them, either. It was important to treat them with respect.”
Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/29/sally-mann-naked-dead
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-dec-05-la-ca-1205-sally-mann-20101205-story.html
Michele Usher 