You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Ash Art. that’s crazy.
DATELINE: NETHERLANDS
A Dutch artist is using the ashes of dead people to create weird household objects.
Yeah you heard right.
The guy pours the donated remains of Uncle Harry and Aunt Libby into a device that solidifies the ash into manufacturing molds that create bizare memorials.
Yeah; nothing says forever like a kenmore vaccum cleaner joint assembly made out of incinerated human flesh.
According to published reports; Artist Wieki Somers said the project demonstrates the fragility of life and questions our attachment to inanimate objects.
It sounds like this guy is wound too tight. I don’t even like looking in the coffin at the deceased. All stiff and smelling of day old formaldyhyde. For get it.
I can accept cremation, and I even applaud a creative dispersal plan that honors the dead.
I dumped my dad on the warning track at Wrigley. Touching.
I scattered my mom’s remains on the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Mexico at sunset. Memorable.
I used Me Maw’s remains as substitute cat litter when I couldn’t get to the market on time. Questionable.
But compressing human ash into an industrial mold to make bizarre, post mortum paper weights and coffee table fodder? That is creepy.
“We may offer Grandpa a second life as a useful rocking chair or even as a vacuum cleaner or a toaster,” the so called artist said. “Would we then become more attached to these products?”
More attached to these products?
What are we going to do, mass produce car parts made from ashes of the dead?
Are we going to incinerate homeless people so we can make them into armoirs?
How bout the next airline disaster? In an effort to be “green”, will the victim’s bodies be percolated down to a chalky paste that is the fundamental ingredient in the next plane’s tray tables?
Maybe they could turn the remains into plastic cutlery that you can use to spread strawberry jam on your muffin. Now that is maximizing your tragedy people.
How bout turning people into plastic dash boards for cars. How bout people as a fishing lure for you anglers?
Let’s use cremated remains in school kids paste.
Here Johnny, glue the gold star on your project with Mr. Feldman’s bio paste.
What?
What’s next? Ash related foods? Ash coffee? Corn Beef and “Ash”
Remember Soylent Green is People.
And what will become of Ash Wednesday if all the ash is being injected into manufactured forms?
More than 465,000 liters (122,840 gallons) of human ashes are produced every day worldwide and Somers’ experiment is the latest in a growing list of alternatives to the traditional scattering.
Why alternative scattering? Is there a large demand for alternative ash use? I understand alternative energy and alternative life style and alternative alternatives? But another use for the ash of the dead?
In recent years cremated remains have been used to create memorial diamonds, ink for commemorative tattoos and even paint before it goes on the canvas.
That’s nice and all.
Now put the ash in an urn and stick it on the mantle. Scatter your ashes on the top of Mt. Kilamanjaro like Uncle Fester requested.
Don’t burn up mommy and then make her into an oven mitt.
It’s just not respectful of the dead.
Somers’ 3D ash models are on display as part of the “In Progress” exhibition held at gallery space Grand-Hornu Images in Belgium.
The fact anyone would come and see this as art, well that’s just crazy!