To Infinity and Beyond: Life and Death Matters in Asian Americanist Art Critique and Jae Rhim Lee's Mushroom Burial Suit

Abstract

Abstract:This essay explores designer JR Lee's "mushroom death suit" and filmmaker Grace Lee's short film "Suiting Dennis" as part of a subcultural movement amongst environmental activists, sustainable designers, and public health advocates to create public awareness of alternative green choices to Western burial practices. In the urgency to leave a lighter carbon footprint on the planet—not just in life, but in death—what role do non-Western epistemologies and Asian Americanist critiques of postmortem enlightenment play in contemporary movements to "green" death?