Cremator

Working as a cremator you see only the endings. Body remains can reveal details of life of the deceased. Christina Kinnunen likes to imagine those past lives by ”reading” the bones. She works in crematorium in Turku, Finland. When I met her the first time I noticed that skulls were tattooed in her skin. ”Death is something that I’m the most interested in: what is death? And the fact how much it affects our human lives.” She decided to get herself a job that is guaranteed to never end. Well, if one thing is for certain, that’s dying. I followed her daily working ritual and interviewed her thoughts about her work and death. While working on the project I was also fortunate to witness the cremation process myself. I saw how a human body burns and transforms into ash. The process was meditative and calming. With this series I want to make death more visible. Death is one of the most natural things but in our western culture it’s hidden inside hospitals and seen as something wrong - like a mistake. It takes from one to three hour to cremate one human body. Big temperature reduces the body to its basic elements. After the burning collected bone fragments and skeleton remains are ground into finer consistency. Before the grinding all metal pieces must be separated. Remains might contain for example surgical screws, artificial joints, implants and parts of the casket. The final cremation remains are put in an urn. Christina’s own perception of death leaves room for interpretation: ”After the body is abandoned I suppose any number of things can happen. We know that person is energy matter, which is what it means to be alive, and we also know according to the laws of physics that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only chance forms.”