synapse collapse

From Design Observer,

One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front of a neighbor’s house, he spotted a pile of trash: old mattresses, cardboard boxes, a few broken lamps. Amidst the garbage he caught sight of a battered suitcase. He bent down, turned the case on its side and popped the clasps.

“The thing that affects me most about the photographs is what isn’t there. The absences, like the photograph of the chalk marks of the feet on the bridge. People know what we did at Hiroshima, but we just don’t want to think about it.”

— Daryl Levy, wife of Don Levy

Don Levy was the gentleman walking his dog who found photographs from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey for the Pacific Theatre of War, a survey commissioned by President Truman following the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.