TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

The kusōzu, a Japanese Buddhist practice, illustrates the decomposition of a corpse in nine stages, to underscore the impermanence of life, the vulnerability of existence, and the fragility of the body.  This tradition, blending religion and aesthetics, finds a parallel in forensic studies of the thanatobiome, the microbial communities involved in the five stages of human decomposition. Such artistic and scientific approaches converge in their exploration of the body post-mortem, reflecting the cyclical nature of life and death. While the kusōzu visually narrates body decay, the thanatobiome unravels the succession of microbial populations driving this process, shedding light on thanatomorphosis—the gradual transition of a human carcass into carrion, skeleton, and ultimately dust. Beyond a simple representation of corpses for artistic purposes, my hybrid approach bridging art and science seeks to propose novel ways of depicting body decomposition, drawing inspiration from both ancient aesthetic traditions and contemporary microbial forensics.