New Urban Arts Space exhibition opens up a conversation about death
Diane Callahan, who co-curated “Spirit & Dust” alongside Michelle Burdine, traced the genesis of the new Urban Arts Space exhibition back to the first Death Cafe conversation she attended in 2018.
“And the principle of it is that you just gather to talk about what’s on your mind about death,” said Callahan, whose “Spirit & Dust” kicks off today (Tuesday, Oct. 13), with an opening reception planned for 5-7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16. “And there’s no agenda. There’s no religious motive to it. You just drink tea, you eat cake, and you talk for an hour or two. … And I really liked going beyond all the small talk and getting to the heart of things in life, hearing all these different perspectives on the afterlife and end-of-life care and the grief people had experienced in their lives.”
The meeting has surfaced in myriad ways in Callahan’s creative life, also informing her in-progress novel, which stages a core scene at a Death Cafe and includes a character who can see how people will die. And yet, Callahan said it was not an interest in mortality that initially compelled her to attend, but rather an internal pull that has always led her to seek out “anything a little strange or different,” as she explained it.
