“Reclaiming Death: Art | Ritual | Advocacy,” an exhibition of work by 20 artists who express personal and cultural connections to end-of-life practices, will open Sunday at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton and run through May 16. A reception will be held on Feb. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m.
“As long as people have died, artists have played an integral role in creating cultural death practices,” says a statement on the website of Ma’s House. “Our collective relationship to death and dying is inextricably tied to our humanity, and mending that relationship directly impacts all we experience in life. ‘Reclaiming Death’ is an ongoing pursuit of this mending which requires the communal effort of every participating artist and their unique approach to death work.”
“Reclaiming Death” began as a research project by Brianna L. Hernández, an artist, death doula, and director of curation at Ma’s House, as part of Hyperallergic’s Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators. The series of online articles developed into an in-person exhibition at Ma’s House in 2024, which recently posted an open call for the second iteration of the show and a printed publication. Ms. Hernández received a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Huntington Arts Council to support the development of the publication.
The exhibiting artists are Yoli Alma-Flor, Anjali Benjamin-Webb, Ja’Deana Cognetta-Whitfield, Jade Cruz, Fadl Fakhouri, Maria Flores, Nadira Saara Foster-Williams, Mala (Trishia Frulla), Brianna L. Hernández, Cecilia Lim, Jordan Matthew, Courtney Minor, Keysha Rivera, Gino Romero, Shizu Saldamando, Mangda Sengvanhpheng, Chié Shimizu, Anjli Vaswani, Lauren Grace Williamson, and Noah Zhou.
