This artist immortalized his grandfather by using his ashes in an art project

BY: JONATHAN MOSS

We are all composed of stardust. This may sound like a lame, sentimental attempt at poetry, yet astrophysicist Karel Schrijver has compiled a book of solid science that explains how the molecules and atoms that comprise your bones, muscles and organs actually originated from cosmic explosions billions of years ago.

We are made up of dust as old as the universe and dust that may have only landed here a century ago. It’s all mixing in our bodies as cells constantly die and regenerate. Many people don’t realize that our skin cells are constantly dying and replacing themselves; nearly 30,000 cells die every minute of our lives, and our external surface layer of skin is replaced completely once per year.

It is facts like this that inspired photographer Alan Knox, to compose celestial images by spreading his ashes onto photographic paper. Through his work he attempts to recombine the dead with the birth of all life. He recognizes that there is a transactional relationship between the finite and the infinite, attempting to reassemble the unity of existence.

Image © Alan Knox

“Scattering the cremated ashes of my grandfather, Duncan Marshall, onto photographic paper as photograms, a vision of the universe appears in which one can see almost as far back in time as the Big Bang, reconnecting the remains of the dead with the origin of all life,” writes Knox.

It is shocking how similar each speck of his grandfather’s ashes resemble patterns of interstellar marvels such as moons, stars, asteroids, and galaxies. Finding a final resting place in the sky, his grandfather’s body finds transcendence. Knox says that he wants to “convey Immanuel Kant’s belief that all human life is by its very nature sublime for no infinity in nature or space could ever match the infinite scope of the human mind.”

Though this universal truth is not perceptible to the naked eye, through this visual representation the message is accurately conveyed. So next time you are lying upon your roof, gazing at the thousands of stars poking through the night sky remember that you and the miracle that stretches out before you are indivisible.

If you would like to check his work out further, be sure to look at his Instagram and Twitter pages.