Death is the Mother of Beauty
Sally Mann’s Body Farm Photography

There are many artists, usually great ones, who are able to push themselves to their limit to experience life and death for their art. Especially with death, many people feel extremely uncomfortable with its trappings – the pungent scent of decay, the multiple hues of flesh rotting, the insects who make bodies their homes – and it takes a true artists’ eye to see the beauty in these things. One such artist is famed American photographer Sally Mann, whose Body Farm series takes on the challenge of human decay as something to be experienced with a stunning poignance and not with disgust. She spent time wandering the acres of the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility’s body farm, where approximately 40 corpses are left to the elements to decay as they will, as researchers note how environment, exposure, position and many other factors effect the rate of decomposition. Mann’s photos are a testament to her artistry – she is able to photograph a bloated corpse as if it was a reclining nude. She is able to capture the essential loneliness of death, a lifeless body sprawled on the forest floor, but I also get a sense of our becoming one with the decaying leaves and debris as our nutrients are pulled into the rich earth, feeding the life that thrives above and below each body. I admire her photography and I readily acknowledge her genius, but I have to say, I am thankful to admire from a distance, and not to experience the full smell and maggot-induced movement of the reality! Check out the full set of Sally Mann’s Body Farm below.

All photos: Sally Mann via sallymann.com