Ghost Prints is a series of monotypes based upon photographs taken by Alan Powell of the Mummies of Guanajuato, executed between August and December 2023. The “Mummies of Guanajuato” have resided in an underground museum in central Mexico for over a century. The mummified bodies seen here were exhumed from cemeteries to rest after a local law demanded families pay a ‘burial tax,’ or else be disinterred from their original resting place. Corpses whose families could not pay were stored aboveground in a building which became charging admission starting in the late 1800s. The museum is the largest tourist attraction in central Mexico. The bodies were preserved naturally, without embalming or bandages, due to sunlight and the dry conditions in the tombs where they were moved to. Remarkably some mummies have retained hair, skin, and stitches of their burial clothing.
- Subject Matter: ghosts
- Collections: prints