I never knew that anxiety attacks were a normal expression of grief until my mom died. I wrote about my experiences of them, what I learned, and the coping strategies that worked for me on Chel Bell Guild's Substack, Life and Death.

Chel is a death doula, grief educator, and writer from Southwest Florida who I connected with through social media a few years ago. I enjoyed some of her posts and her writing resonated with me.

Recently, she invited me to share my story. Writing this piece ended up feeling like therapy.

Support to Sustainability:
Nurturing Artists, Nurturing Change

A panel on parent and caregiver support in the visual arts, with:

44.4 Mother/Artist Collective
Karen Miranda Augustine
Liz Barron (Indigenous Curatorial Collective)

Moderator: Kerri-Lynn Reeves

Register for this visual arts roundtable.

Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts 
Toronto Island

I took part in MOTHRA’s first instalment of their artist residency for artists who are unpaid caregivers living in Canada.

Inspired by Cove Park’s Creative Residencies for Carers (Scotland), this was a respite residency for artists to work on their practice away from those they care for. 

The program consisted of unstructured time in the studio but also provided opportunities for group discussions, which strengthened our connections with each other. In group we shared our experiences of caregiving, loss, mental health and life challenges.

It also provided me with the opportunity to pilot Bluebelles: Therapeutic Art Workshops for the Bereaved. With the passing of my mother, my grief has been expressing itself as anxiety attacks. And through those challenges, I created a series of arts-based workshops (inspired by death and mourning practices from the African diaspora) to help myself and others process emotions and increase awareness of how these feelings are held within the body.

I received some constructive feedback during this residency and am looking forward to hosting these workshops to the larger community this spring. 

Contact me if you'd like to be notified of their launch.

Falmouth University 
Woodlane Campus, Cornwall, UK

I was invited to participate in the Death x Design x Culture conference where I presented a talk on my Public Displays of Affection project after screening the video component of it.

The conference convened a diverse community of scholars, artists, researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore the role of design as it relates to death at individual, community, and broader cultural contexts.

It was a really interesting mix of topics, from public and digital memorials, Victorian mourning jewellery, MAiD topics, grief representation in Japanese film, to a really interesting walking tour and historical discussion of garden cemetaries.