This Mushroom Death Suit Will Eat You When You Die

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

Here’s something that won’t give you horrifying nightmares or anything: a suit made of mushrooms designed to consume your body. That’s terrifying. Ideally, the Mushroom Death Suit is intended to eat your body after you die, but those among us who have spent most of their lives watching low-budget horror and science fiction movies late at night will imagine a scenario where this thing somehow gets loose and starts devouring an unsuspecting populace.

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The Mushroom Death Suit is pretty much exactly what the name implies. It’s a bodysuit laced with flesh-eating fungal spores to help your body decompose naturally. The suit is the brainchild of artist and inventor Jae Rhim Lee, and is part of her “Infinity Burial Project.” Her plan is to generate conversation about our own mortality, and acceptance of death. At the same time, the venture seeks to spread information about more environmentally sound alternatives to the conventional burial practices like cremation, traditional casket interment, and embalming, which relies heavily on harsh chemicals.

Lee says, “I am interested in cultural death denial, and why we are so distanced from our bodies, and especially how death denial leads to funeral practices that harm the environment.”

She “trained” the mushrooms to recognize her as a food source by feeding them bits of her hair, fingernails, skin, and other secretions. That’s creepy, but kind of amazing at the same time. Part of why she chose mushrooms, as opposed to something like worms, is because the fungus actually cleans toxins out of the environment, which ties back into the theme of lessening the environmental impact of your death.