What happens to the places we lived in; the places we loved in after we die? Do our memories haunt the barren walls like grieving ghosts or do they simply burn out and fade away?
This is the question that photographer Steve Birnbaum set out to answer earlier this year while paying a visit to Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain’s now-abandoned home .
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By contrasting photos from Kurt’s personal albums with the now-barren spaces, Steve has created a truly impactful piece of art that’s sure to make the small hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up.
Kurt Cobain is one of the most important names in the history of Grunge and Rock music at large.
It’s crazy to think that enough time has passed that an entire generation of young music goers may have never even heard of the legendary frontman.
For context, Kurt was the lead singer, principal songwriter, as well as frontman for the band Nirvana.
Nirvana was founded by Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic. Three years after the band formed in 1987, they recruited drummer Dave Grohl into the fold .
Nirvana went from the fringe of the Seattle Grunge scene to the absolute forefront of the music world almost overnight.
Nirvana’s sophomore album, Nevermind , was the second-best-selling album of 1991. The band’s lead single, ” Smells Like Teen Spirit ,” became one of the most popular songs of the decade.
Shortly after the band’s meteoric rise, Kurt started to become disenchanted with his own fame.
Kurt became reclusive, withdrawn, and resentful of his own music. He fell deep into depression/addiction and in 1994 — he took his own life.
Since Kurt’s tragic death, the home he once lived in with his widow, Courtney Love, and his daughter, Francis Bean, has sat abandoned.
Earlier this year, a week before the 28th anniversary of Kurt’s suicide, photographer Steve Birnbaum decided to give Nirvana fans a glimpse into Kurt’s past life.
“I went back and forth for a while as to whether I wanted to post these pictures or not,” Steve wrote via Instagram.
Steve explained how some of the photos he planned on posting straddle the delicate line between photoshoots and family photos — some of which were never intended to see the light of day .
Here we can see a shot of Kurt bottle-feeding a young Francis Bean on the floor of his bedroom.
It’s almost cathartic to imagine what Kurt might have been thinking as he held his daughter in his arms while staring out the window.
Steve explained that the purpose of his work is to illustrate the passage of time.
“How one day we’re here, and the next day we’re not . It’s to radiate the memories these images hold and the power that one split second of time can imprint on us,” he explained.
The irony, according to Steve, is that this feeling is at its most palpable when the people in the photos are no longer with us.
Steve goes on to talk about how he could practically feel Kurt’s memories permeating from the walls as he made his way through his now-abandoned family home.
Not surprisingly, Steve’s photos and videos had a profound effect on his friends and followers.
Steve’s photo collage on Instagram has already received more than 26,000 likes and his TikTok video has been viewed more than 4 million times.
“It’s sad cause it makes you reflect on your life,” a fellow TikTok user commented. “We are all just a collection of memories and then we fade away.”
In Kurt’s own words contained in his suicide note, ” It’s better to burn out than to fade away .” Kurt’s light may have been too bright for the world, but his legacy will never be forgotten.
