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Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

Luce Lebart finds the beauty in decay in her book, Mold is Beautiful. A found box of plates that were covered in mold became the inspiration for this beautiful body of work. Feature Shoot's article about the work says:

Although the historian was first intrigued by the prospect of tracking down the original creator of the gelatin plates, she soon realized that the mold, in all its fickleness, had become the true author of the pictures that lay before her. In places, the fungus seemed to join in harmony with the primary image, impersonating gulls in flight or mimicking the breaking of the sea.

I'm a fan of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi -- finding beauty in decay and the impermanence of physical things. These images portray this idea perfectly. Lebart says this about her work:

Their solitary confinement, together with the organic resources inherent to their process (gelatine and potato starch), has turned out to be fertile ground for creative, random proliferation.

Image of a photographic plate covered in mold from the book Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

Image of a photographic plate covered in mold from the book Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

Image of a photographic plate covered in mold from the book Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

Image of a photographic plate covered in mold from the book Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

Image of a photographic plate covered in mold from the book Mold is Beautiful by Luce Lebart

 

via Feature Shoot