The Dead Sea's salty waters transformed this black dress
Twisted wedding dress inspiration, anyone?
Israeli artist Sigalit Landau's series Salt Bride documents the transition of a black dress that spent three months submerged in the Dead Sea.
Landau and her partner, Yotam From, put together eight large color prints of the garment, which are on display at London's Marlborough Contemporary.
You May Also Like
The traditional Hasidic dress Landau used for the project was created to replicate an outfit worn by young bride Leah in The Dybbuk, a 100-year-old Yiddish play.
In the play, Leah is possessed by an evil spirit and then exorcised. "By submerging Leah's dress in the Dead Sea, it is is transformed underwater as salt crystals gradually adhere to the fabric," a press release from Marlborough Contemporary reads. "Over time, the sea’s alchemy transforms the plain garment from a symbol associated with death and madness into the wedding dress it was always intended to be."
Landau and From visited the dress periodically over the course of three months to take stunning underwater photos of its salt-accumulating progress.
“Over the years, I learnt more and more about this low and strange place. Still the magic is there waiting for us: new experiments, ideas and understandings," Landau said of the Dead Sea.
"It is like meeting with a different time system, a different logic, another planet. It looks like snow, like sugar, like death’s embrace; solid tears, like a white surrender to fire and water combined.”
Salt Bride is not Landau's first foray into the world of salt art. The Salt section of her website shows her other sodium chloride creations, including a bicycle, a chandelier, a noose and a violin.
Salt Bride runs through Sept. 3 at Marlborough Contemporary in London.
Sophie was a Viral Content Intern for the Watercooler channel. More writing and other stuff by Sophie can be found at www.sophiehirsh.com.
