Oriri ex cinere

In Oriri ex cinere (rising from the ashes), artist Spring Hurlbut recounts the inspiration and process behind the photographic and video work she has created using cremated human and animal ashes. Hurlbut’s lines, quadrilaterals and circles of ash have an integrity of form that keeps them whole and intact, and another force that dissipates their structure, suggestive of the dissolution that ultimately affects all living forms. Her video, Airborne, shows ashes of named individuals emerging from black boxes and riding the air currents in a dance involving the movements of the living and the vestiges of the dead. Hurlbut draws attention to the reality of death that is generally cloistered in our society. Through her activation of human and animal ashes, she gives the dead a chance to engage once again with life.