I tend to follow environmentalists, artists, and community development nonprofits on twitter, sometimes finding ideas I want to share here. Smaller Cities Unite! (@SmallerCitiesU) is a source for all three topics. Recently it linked to this Live Science article by Tia Ghose.
Ghose writes, “Artist Sigalit Landau submerged a 1920s-style long, black dress in Israel’s Dead Sea for two months in 2014. When the dress was lifted from the salty waters, it was a sparkling, crystalline sculpture formed from salt. …
“Landau has been inspired by the Dead Sea’s unique environment for past artwork, including salt-crystal-encrusted lamps, a salty hangman’s noose and a crystalline island made of shoes, according to the artist’s website.
“The current exhibit uses a dress that is a replica of the long, black one worn by a character in the classic Hasidic Jewish ghost-story called ‘The Dybbuk.’ In that story, the bride, Leah, is possessed by the evil spirit of her dead suitor, who died before they could marry. The dress was worn during the 1920s production of the play. …
“The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water on Earth. At 34 percent salnity, it is several times saltier than the open ocean. … The hypersalinity is also what’s behind the alchemy that transforms the black dress into a shining white dress. Salt tends to crystallize out of very salty solutions, and it typically nucleates, or seeds, at places that have saltier concentrations than the surrounding water …
“As the dress initially caught bits of extra salt, that led to a locally higher concentration of salt, spurring the salt molecules to line up into crystals that eventually grew and transformed this deathly dress into a sparkly saline jewel.”
Read more.
Photo: Matanya Tausig
Sigalit Landau’s sparkly salt sculpture was originally a black dress that was submerged in the Dead Sea for two months.
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