Bodies in the Cellar… The Dioramas of Marc Giai-Miniet

The phrase we often use to describe the human tendency to conceal our faults and secrets is “skeletons in the closet,” but wouldn’t it be more accurate if those skeletons were in the basement? The dank, dark recesses of the cellars and basements of houses all over the world are repositories for the junk – and sometimes skeletons – that we want to hide from the world. Marc Giai-Miniet’s dioramas show the decay that infests the human condition, the mildew and mold creeping up the walls from the bowels of each building. The basements are blackened; the books that line the shelves of the upper floors lying broken and sooty on the cellar floor, as if to symbolize the hidden and discarded knowledge we all carry with us. Giai-Miniet mimics the human body with his sculptures, with shapes that are eerily similar to organs and viscera occupying the floors of his houses. One diorama actually has mummified bodies in the basement, and all have strange, steampunk-like contraptions that connect the floors like a decaying circulatory system. Like our minds and bodies, there is a precarious balance of positive and negative energy, light and dark emotions, regeneration and decay; Giai-Miniet’s boxes demonstrate this balance, and illustrate its imbalance. Enjoy some of his fantastic, creepy work below…