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.

Reclaiming Death began as a virtual exhibition and research project by Ma’s House Director of Curation, Brianna L. Hernández, as part of Hyperallergic’s 2024-25 Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators. Beginning with the history of funerary arts and connecting these past examples to contemporary practitioners, Reclaiming Death, explores the living legacy of art as a way to honor the dead.

Curator’s Statement
As an artist-curator whose practice is focused on death and dying, I’m deeply invested in the work of my peers. Many of us share an ongoing process of reclaiming our cultural traditions, language, and social permissions of grief, mourning, and memorialization from their taboos and industrialized systems. In a social atmosphere where death is primarily avoided or otherwise presented through platitudes and euphemisms, translating death from heritage and lived experiences is vital in honoring the vastness of end-of-life practices
and our inextricably tied humanity.