Deathcare Offerings
The Art of Endings and Reclaiming Death
Dearest Community,
It’s me, Resham, the current caretaker of this space on the internet. I hope your heart is feeling held.
Last year, with the support and investment of a dedicated group of deathworkers, poets, grievers, lovers and friends, we launched The Art of Endings - a online course for grieving people to be in the midst of their loss in community with a host of contributors giving various perspectives and practical tips towards various questions— What is possible from the fertile and grief-laden soil of endings? What can we make from there? What art is possible? What kinds of connections?
Last year we came at this course from the broad lens of endings around relationships. Defined in many different ways. The group that showed up together shared a variety of endings and created a soft landing place that held us all through the winter months (well at least winter for some of us).
Thoughts from last year’s participants:
We are doing this again very soon. The Art of Endings container/course/offering is back and our first gathering is October 31st. All the information about this offering can be found here. The lens of endings we are exploring is through the ending of Systems of all kinds. If you are wondering if this course might be for you, these are just a few of the types of losses or endings that you might find support in processing in this container:
processing of physical death - either impending or previous
processing around mass death or genocide and the various types of systems that uphold this kind of death
processing around relationship endings
processing around the endings of various belief structures along with the loss of community and feelings of safety
processing loss around gender identity and gender expression.
and more…
Again I will be facilitating and co-dreaming this container with fellow deathworker/artist Trishia Frulla of Hypofutures.
Again there are various sliding scale options and payment plan options. Sliding scale is meant for BIPOC folks.
Again we have a brilliant group of contributors to lead individual sessions. These are their bios. If you don’t already you should know and follow all these dreamers. They are creating new worlds in their own ways.
All our bios:
This will be special. Come join us if you feel moved. Or reach out and ask questions if you have any. Registration will close October 25th.
Also I wanted to share information about a group art show happening right now called Reclaiming Death. Brianna Hernández1, a death doula and artist, created and curated this show. There is more written here where the vision of this show was initially launched as part of Brianna’s participation in Hyperallergic's 2024-25 Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators. I have work in this show alongside some other incredible artists. There is more here about the show and the artists from Ma’s House website:
Ma’s House is pleased to present Reclaiming Death: Art, Ritual, and Advocacy at End of Life, a group exhibition featuring Jeremy Dennis, Jenie Gao, Brianna L. Hernandez, Jonathan Herrera Soto, Resham Mantri, mk, Nirmal Raja, Denise Silva-Dennis, Adrienne Terry and A young Yu in collaboration with Nicholas Oh. The artworks on view present personal and culturally significant methods of relating to grief and death in ways that are healing and connected to heritage. The opening reception is Saturday, September 21, from 5-7 pm. The exhibition will run from Sunday, September 15—Saturday, November 30, 2024.
Some images from the show and my piece, titled Intergenerational Home. I highly recommend if you’re in the area visiting Ma’s House on Shinnecock Nation and seeing all the artists’ work. It’s truly a stunning show combining death & grief things in art form. It’s a potent reminder of all the ways we do deathwork. I was honored to be a part of this.
Lastly the world is in a state of grief, shock, revolution, and transformation. There continues to be mass deaths, in the forms of genocides and climate catastrophe due to greed and capitalism. Naming death is necessary in this moment. Being able to say clearly what we are seeing. It’s a wild feeling of dissidence to see what we are seeing but have no world leaders put the breaks on these multiple preventable tragedies. I’m thinking alot about endurance and keeping our bodies strong for this long fight to counter empire’s stranglehold on life for all of us, human or otherwise. Anam write a succinct piece about what it feels like in this moment to have been a feeling loving person who resists and has been witnessing for a year of genocide in Gaza. Recommend reading.
I plan to come here as often as possible to update on things community deathcare, resistance, and how we endure. Because it’s important for us to name things as they are, and talk about how we are resisting. If you have an idea for a story or collaboration with CDD, please reach out here.
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Sidenote: We wrote about Brianna’s art here on CDD in one of our earliest volumes!
