Corpses preserved in toxic formaldehyde and manipulated with 'special efffects' makeup, resource-depleting caskets, and energy-intensive cremation which deposits mercury and other toxins into the air are a few of the ways in which death denial and environmental degradation are inextricably linked in western society. Although there are a range of "green" burial alternatives on the market, there are no options which acknowledge and account for the full physical realities of death: decomposition and the accumulated industrial toxins, energy, and resources in corpses.

The Infinity Burial Project is a modest proposal for an alternative burial system which challenges the death denial and environmental dystopia manifested in existing western funerary practices. The Project consists of the Infinity Mushroom, Burial Suit, Decompiculture Kit, and Burial System, tools which address the full physical realities of death. Artist/designer Jae Rhim Lee is developing these tools in part through a self-experiment in death acceptance in which she renegotiates her relationship to her body and death.

The Infinity Mushroom: Training a Carnivorous Mushroom, Training for Death Acceptance

The Infinity Mushroom (in progress) will be a unique strain(s) of fungi that will be trained to decompose bodies and remediate the industrial toxins in bodies. Using mycological tissue culture and growing techniques, Jae Rhim Lee is training fungi to consume her own body tissue and excretions--skin, hair, nails, blood, bone, fat, tears, urine, feces, and sweat. The fungi have been chosen for their potential to utilize the nutrients in human tissue and to remediate industrial toxins in soil. Once realized, the Infinity Mushroom will be applied to the other components of the project.

Decompiculture Kit

The Decompiculture Kit consists of a mixture of flora and fauna and odors associated with corpse decomposition and toxin remediation. The Kit will be incorporated into various objects such as makeup, non-toxic embalming fluids, and the Infinity Burial System.

Burial Suit

The first prototype of the Infinity Burial Suit is a body suit embroidered with thread infused with mushroom spores. The embroidery pattern resembles the dendritic growth of mushroom mycelium. The Suit is accompanied by an Alternative Embalming Fluid, a liquid spore slurry, and Decompiculture Makeup, a two-part makeup consisting of a mixture of dry mineral makeup and dried mushroom spores and a separate liquid culture medium. Combining the two parts and applying them to the body activates the mushroom spores to develop and grow.

Burial Vehicle

Death is often conceived of as static, invariable, and terminal. The Infinity Burial Vehicle is a mobile container for a two-step decomposition process, anaerobic and aerobic, which converts corpses into useable biomethane gas and clean compost. First, the digester partially decomposes the body and produces methane gas, which will be used as an energy source. Once the methane production is complete, the remains are aerated and mixed with the future Infinity Mushroom and other components of the Decompiculture Kit. The Mushroom will complete the decomposition and detoxify the remains.