Change the World
< felicia.ostman
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You don't find many designers working in the funeral business thinking about more creative ways for you to leave this world (and maybe they should be). However, the product designer Gerard Moline has combined the romantic notion of life after death with an eco solution to the dirty business of the actual, you know, transition. His Bios Urn is a biodegradable urn made from coconut shell, compacted peat and cellulose and inside it contains the seed of a tree.
Since the beginning of recorded time, and probably since long before that, the human body has been highly politicized, particularly in the areas of sexuality and reproduction. With the emergence of biotechnology, genetic modification, and the further refinement of psychopharmacology, we can expect further political polarization around the ethical issues these new options will raise. For example: should we genetically enhance our offspring in accordance with our cultural values, thereby significantly shaping their future in unpredictable ways before they’re even born? In our time, many of the political battles over the body revolve around reproduction, and therefore the rights of women. Abortion and birth control, specifically, are epicenters of controversy in the United States, and the site of a fervent cultural clash between religious ideas about sex and reproduction and democratic ideals of personal liberty.
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