Sepulchral Garden Ornaments

Plastination is the latest craze. In London, after Cologne, Tokyo and Seoul, many bodies are pumped full with reactive polymers. That gives the stiff a nice “shine” to the skin and practically preserves it ‘till kingdom comes. There are exhibitions which display corpses opened up and dissected – but I think for a more DIY, home-grown approach this doesn’t have to be. Dead relatives, whose blood and fat has been replaced by epoxy resins in a process involving a vacuum, lots of tubes and wires and other scary things, can be just as well be kept “whole”.

They are completely odour free and don’t rot away like their fellow dead. So if Auntie Phillippa cops it, you can have her plastinated, which makes her 100% water resistant. Then you can sit her outside in the garden on her favourite bench and even install some ambient lighting – she’ll be always there and you don’t have to fork out on a funeral. Over a period of time, you can have the whole family assembled in your very own little Mme Tusseau exhibition – only that your showpieces are the real thing.