The Posthumous World

Our bodies, our planet and the world that will continue after us.

How might our attitudes to death and dying change if we could see how a dead body is reabsorbed back into the environment?

The Posthumous World is a cultural intervention to demonstrate the intimate connection between the death of our body and the life of our planet. By scientifically visualising the artist’s dead body rejoining the environment after a green or natural burial we will present death as a natural, ecological process and make clear the importance of body disposal choices. The world will not end with you.

A green burial is thought to be the most environmentally beneficial method of body disposal. It will allow people to see for the first time how a decaying body can nurture new life and vegetation if this option is chosen. We will offer a more positive image of the corpse, shifting its associations away from horror with aim of ultimately changing its meaning. We seek to initiate a deeper reflection on Western attitudes to mortality, the choices we can make and the ‘posthumous world’ that will continue after us.

This artwork will be the first scientifically accurate, fully animated 3D model of human decomposition and will take the form of a durational sculpture, in life-sized video wall, VR and AR installation versions.

A collaboration between artists, forensic and ecological scientists and scholars of death and dying.

how can we create a relationship with a world that will continue without us?
the corpse as continuity and as transformation
the corpse as an artistic medium
green burial: my body as a gift to the planet
eco-grief: how do we mourn for the environment? how do we bury the myth of limitless growth?
reversing your decomposition: the science of life history reconstruction
the data of the dead and the informational corpse
can death survive technology? What is immortality for?
DIY burial: your ancestors in your back garden
secular spiritualities: ‘ecological immortality’
can we imagine a green ancestor shrine?
animism and the life of the corpse