DEVIL
My father, James Hurlbut passed away three years ago. His cremated body was divided and preserved in plastic bags from the funeral home. I received one quarter of his remains. At first I shelved my dad's ashes, not knowing what to do with them. Finally I decided to sift through the ashes and sweepings, not unlike an archaeologist. I discovered distinctive bone shards in the ashes and debris. Following my previous tenures at the Royal Ontario Museum, in 2001, and at the Manchester Museum of Natural History, UK, in 2004, where I had created, respectively, the exhibitions The Final Sleep and Beloved and Forsaken, I was influenced by how the conservators documented their collections. I employed similar techniques to photograph my father's ashes. My father's remains marked the beginning of the photographic series Deuil, acknowledging his death, among others.

The initial stages of this work gave recognition that my father existed, and that now he no longer exists. I found the work sad but calming. It somehow made perfect sense to be doing this. In the sifting of my dad's ashes I felt that I was in conversation with my father. My father's passing had taken on ritualised significance. Working with his last vestiges has given me some measure of solace. Since that time I have photographed, with the permission of the mother Cydney Colvig, the ashes of her infant daughter Scarlett, who survived less than three hours after her birth. Scarlett's fleeting existence makes one acutely aware of the tenuous relationship between the living, and life never lived.

Toronto photographer Mary Pocock, recently deceased, after a long period of battling two different invasive forms of breast cancer, faced issues of her own mortality for 11 years with remarkable candour and courage. Upon seeing my work Mary's husband, Marcus Schubert, and her sister Kate invited me to photograph her ashes. Knowing posthumously that Mary had faced her own impending death with directness and spiritual preparedness, had been very affecting. The previous archival documentation of my father, with its quantifiable placement of the cremated body, had given way to of the element of spontaneity and unpredictability with Mary.

Another photographer Galen Kuellmer, who I knew both as a friend and assistant, died accidentally. Galen's parents, Jim Kuellmer and Jan MacKie graciously entrusted me with their son's ashes. With Galen's ashes I found myself selecting almost exclusively the fine dust from his remains. The dust had an almost intangible existence, on the edge of dematerialising......vaporising. Galen's mother Jan decided to sift through her son's ashes with me. In the following quote she talks about her response to her participation:

'Your willingness to allow me to be part of the process was such a gift. It offered an opening for me to be with the more physical part of his death - my spiritual connection to the cosmos had been shattered like glass thrown to the pavement and the physical parts were, at that time, so much more necessary for me to feel connected."

On showing this new work Deuil to someone, I would explain how the origins began with receiving one quarter of my father's ashes from my mother. However, after explaining how this work unfolded, inevitably the topic would shift from my interpretation to the respondent's reflections on how death has touched them. Normally the devastation of death and the reflections on loss remain a deeply private subject ......a closed door. I was, and continue to be, deeply honoured to have this door opened.
  Spring Hurlbut/ April 30/ 2007