Sigalit Landau is an Israeli artist who made headlines in 2014 when she submerged a 19th century-style gown in the Dead Sea. The latest project of Landau is titled Salt Bride for which she submerged a black dress in the lifeless Dead Sea. The transformation of the dress over three months is an incredible sight.
Landau collaborated with Yotam From for the photographic documentation of the transformation of the dress. Not only did the costume change from black to a pearly, shimmering, crystalline white; the shape of the dress also changed distinctly.
The photographs are currently being exhibited in London at the Marlborough Contemporary art gallery.
The dress resembles the one worn by one of the characters in The Dybbuk, a Yiddish play written by S, Ansky. The play describes the exorcism of a bride possessed by the evil. Landau’s work brings together the themes of Death and Change.
“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.”
Previously, Landau created floating art with watermelons in the sea. In her statement, she said:
“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. 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.”
The series of eight photographs titled the Salt Bride will be displayed at the Marlborough Contemporary till September 3.
