"Who am I and who killed me?": the silent likeness of victims from the archives

Most likely, you are familiar with such a thing as a posthumous photograph. Technically, this is exactly what photographer Arne Svenson is doing, but in a way that you could not even imagine. In fact, Arne takes pictures of those faces that have never been alive.

The photographer created the project "Unspeaking Likeness" (Silent Likeness), in which he traveled around the States and Mexico for several years, visiting police stations and photographing sculptures that were recreated by forensic artists based on the remains of dead people found.

Thousands of bodies are added to the list of unidentified human remains in the United States every year. Sometimes the dead fall under the descriptions in the list of missing people. Others remain nameless. According to estimates of the local press and actively updated blogs about the murders, the total number of victims reaches 40 thousand, but no figure can be called accurate.

When a body is found whose facial features are deformed by a near-death trauma or cadaveric decomposition, law enforcement agencies turn to a forensic expert who reconstructs the face from the remains found.

Using fiberglass, clay and intuition, the forensic artist works on the shape directly on the skull of the deceased, creating a portrait of an unidentified victim. Then the reconstruction is photographed, the pictures are distributed in the hope that it will be possible to identify the victim, and sometimes the coroner's office receives a call from someone who recognized the victim as a neighbor, colleague or daughter. Some murder cases are solved, while others remain "capercaillie".

A photographer from New York, Arne Swanson, traveled around the United States and took portraits of clay faces that are stored in the closets of morgues and police stations, waiting for someone to identify them.

The remains of the child were found in 1974. Forensic experts came to the conclusion that the body belongs to a girl. Later, DNA analysis showed that the victim was a boy. The identity and cause of death have not been established.