Requiem Photographs by John McDonald

They were known as "Indian Affairs Coffins" - the only caskets provided by the Department of Indian Affairs when an Aboriginal person died. They were quickly made, plain, and cheap.

In this series of photographs, John has taken this "Indian Affairs Coffin" out of the realm of the macabre, and has avoided the superstitions and emotional attachments applied to an inanimate object in order to create an artistic expression of the object in and of itself, outside of its normal surroundings.