Jae Rhim Lee: My mushroom burial suit

http://www.ted.com Here's a powerful provocation from artist Jae Rhim Lee. Can we commit our bodies to a cleaner, greener Earth, even after death? Naturally -- using a special burial suit seeded with pollution-gobbling mushrooms. Yes, this just might be the strangest TEDTalk you'll ever see ...

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

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• TED
• TEDTalks
• TEDGlobal
• TEDFellows
• Jae Rhim Lee
• Arts
• Death
• Design
• Green
• Invention
• TED Fellows
• mushrooms
• burial
• burial suit
• decomposition
• pollution
• naturally

[Sparkythedog2008]

If I go the mushroom route, then I'm gonna have a Super Mario themed funeral...just sayin'.

[SDTPW]

lmao @ 6:01-6:08

[twoshedsjohnson]

@TheSweetestVegan Someone who thinks she's a retard.

[Spasatcom]

Good Video, Very Infomative..

[Pangolinx1]

If you get buried with ~60 lbs of charcoal grit and 20 lbs of kelp powder you could end up as a very productive patch of Terra Preta Nova soil for several thousand years. Add an acorn and you get to feed an oak tree for the first few hundred years of that period.

[TheSweetestVegan]

Who laughs like that in the middle of a speech

[samdon815]

Fungi are already eating us , alive . Athletes foot , jock itch , scalp itch are all types of fungus infections at work digesting us , even as we "speak".

[nachoijp]

@artkozak oh yes, of course, I won't argue you about that, I was just talking about the topic on the video, but if we look to other issues this is really small in comparison... so many things to fix!!! :O

[artkozak]

@nachoijp there are toxins you can't degrade. When it comes to mercury, it's only a question where it is. Maybe we have to come to terms with the recycling of toxic elements in cemeteries, or maybe we have to come to terms with the fact that there are toxiv elements in cemeteries, I would like to point out that this pollution is insignificant in comparison with the rare earth industry, maybe it is time to sort out priorities.

[nachoijp]

@artkozak indeed, but the problem of the toxins that don't degrade naturally remains, and they'll build up in the graveyard and probably leak into the ground water... maybe a bag with something that eliminates those toxins (not a suit, just a bag) would solve all those issues, though eating healthy food is the best way to go obviously :P

[artkozak]

@nachoijp wouldn't it be easier to make a few holes in the coffin? Or just not use a coffin? I agree that there is improvement to be brought to the way we dispose of bodies. But the mushroom suits brings no value. Or is it meant as an alternative way of hiding the decay of the body during the ceremony? Actually I think the suit could be usefull, because it would make it easier to stop preparing bodies for ceremonies the way we do... but i prefer to beried with no coffin and no suit