Catherine Ertmann’s photo series, About Dying, unlocks the suppressed, unacknowledged world of death with intimacy and earnestness so that even the most fearful look on…
We all know, as sure as we know that the sky is blue, that we will one day die. A sober thought indeed but as Ertmann states, it is the only certainty we have. However we elude it with the skill of a practised criminal, dodging and avoiding it, throwing it off our scent. We don’t speak about death until it happens in our midst,“and maybe thats why it is hidden away, under linens, in inaccessible dedicated rooms, in cold corridors beneath hospitals”. Because in the pain that comes with losing a loved one, the fact that it is only natural to die is disguised – we are too close, it is too real. Catherine Ertmann’s photo series allows the viewer to peek into the realities of dying with just the right amount of detachment and truth, ultimately rendering a uniquely sanguine outlook on life.
The Denmark based photographer took to Aarhus University Hospital to photograph various anonymous persons at various stages in the process of dying. Autopsies, cremation, the combing of a man’s hair. She expresses, in simplicity, small facts that relieve for a moment, the initial need to recoil at the occasionally graphic imagery.
- “Muscular stiffening begins between four and twelve hours after death”
- “During an autopsy the body is opened from the pubic bone to the throat”
- “When the autopsy is done, the table and the floor are hosed clean with water and soap”
An entire face is never revealed in the series, allowing the viewer to project and recognise the deceased as a relative, as a friend, as themselves. While this concept has the potential to come across as morbid, through Ertmann’s lens we humbly accept death for what it is, in all its sad, beautiful, natural glory.
Ertmann told Beautiful Decay that About Dying “deals with the incomprehensible fact that life ends and hopefully reminds the audience that our time here is precious and what things really matter while we are here”. To view the entire photo series, visit Catherine Ertmann’s site here.
