Cryopreservation Unit, Cryonics Institute, Clinton Township, Michigan
For her series of photographs and subsequent book, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Simon gained extraordinary access to a wide variety of restricted sites throughout the United States, from the mission control center of a nuclear submarine to a research laboratory at Harvard Medical School where vials of live HIV are stored. Each photograph is accompanied by a detailed caption written by the artist, providing background information about the site and what goes on behind its closed doors. This picture shows the space-age-looking unit in which the wife and mother of the inventor of cryostasis-the preservation of the bodies of recently deceased people at very low temperatures-lie suspended between death and a hoped-for second life.
Artwork Details
- Title: Cryopreservation Unit, Cryonics Institute, Clinton Township, Michigan
- Artist: Taryn Simon (American, born 1975)
- Date: 2004, printed 2007
- Medium: Chromogenic print
- Dimensions: a. framed: 37 1/4 × 44 3/4 in. (94.6 × 113.7 cm)
b. label: 6 1/2 × 4 1/2 in. (16.5 × 11.4 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of Hideyuki Osawa, 2007
- Object Number: 2007.459a, b
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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