Priceless Particles

For her project Stardust, Corinne Schulze photographed the “the bits and pieces of archaeological artifacts” she discovered while working with historical treasures at a New York museum:

One day, Schulze looked down at her studio sweep and those tiny pieces of dust and debris left behind struck her differently. Rather than unfortunate casualties of the job, the debris looked to her like celestial formations. She transferred it to a black background—like the vast canvas of space—and snapped a photo.

“It reminded me of the idea that we’re all made of stardust—Carl Sagan and all that stuff,” she said.

Most of the objects she shot were gathered in the early 20th century, when the collection process was far less careful than it is today. Archaeologists shoveled up the objects, dumped them in a box along with whatever dirt and fragments surrounded it, and closed them up with notes about what was found that still left much to the imagination.

See more of Schulze’s work here.