The National Museum of Rio de Janeiro burned to the ground about a year ago. An indescribable loss for the country, the art world, and the science/history world. But the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz asked the museum for the ashes of the disaster... and used them to bring the lost objects back to life.

These are photographs of the ashes (from the EXACT spot where each object lived) that have been sprinkled and arranged in the image of the objects lost.
Most of the artworks are PHOTOGRAPHS of ashes, but the black sculptures are something more:

One of the objects destroyed in the fire was a 12,000 year-old human skull; the oldest human skull found in the Americas. Years before the fire, the museum had used a 3D scanner to capture an exact digital model of the skull. So the black sculpture that you see above was made by using THAT digital file to PRINT the skull with a 3D printer USING ashes from the fire (with a polymer binder). This is some serious Frankenstein action.

This show will punch you in the gut. Because the artist didn't just pick some disaster in the news... this was a disaster in HIS backyard. The artist lives in Brazil and often took his kids to this museum. This is personal - and you can feel it.