Artist Transforms Black Mourning Dress Into Dead Sea Salt-Covered Creation

Israeli artist Sigalit Landau transforms ordinary objects into art using an unconventional material: sea salt. She submerges items like musical instruments, shoes, and barbed wire in the briny Dead Sea, and waits several months for salt crystals to cling to their surface. Then, Landau exhibits or photographs the glittering results.

To create “Salt Bride,” an art installation and photography project now on display at London art gallery Marlborough Contemporary, CNN reports that Landau choose a storied item, a copy of a traditional Hasidic garment worn in the Yiddish play The Dybbuk, which tells the tale of a woman who encounters an evil spirit on her wedding day. She soaked the black mourning dress in the Dead Sea for three months in 2014 and took underwater photos to document the garment’s gradual transformation, which she displays along with images of the final product.

“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,” Marlborough Contemporary explains in a release.

According to Lost At E Minor, the original dress isn’t on display, since it became too heavy to be lifted out of the sea. Landau created a small sculpture of the mourning gown, and calls it “Small Salt Bride.”

“Sigalit Landau: Salt Bride” will be on display at Marlborough Contemporary until September 3. See how it was created below, or check out CNN’s photos for an even more in-depth look.