Funeral Party for the Living

Funeral Party for the Living took place on January 1, 2011. It is one of several ritual projects I utilize in my art practice as an ongoing exercise to explore healing and death rituals. The audience participates in actions encouraging realizations of the brevity of life and aiding in connecting to the present.

Front of the 14 Pews church with mourning wreaths on the doors.

View from behind the desk of the "Eulogy Writing Deaconesses." During the visitation before the funeral, a eulogy writing service was available for attendees needing assistance or last minute advice.

The fashionably mournful.

A "Eulogy for Art" was read.

A brass band lead by Nick Cooper.


The back yard funeral pyre where participants said good-bye to such things as addictions, jobs, bras, lovers, and hemeroids, among other things.


The funeral food potluck included foods such as ambrosia salad, funeral pie, severed arm cake, cooper coins for the afterlife, and sweet funeral wine.

All images courtesy of 14 Pews.

Funeral Food

Saturday, September 25 was the last day of labotanica's School of Latitudes. For the occasion, I prepared self-serve, pot-luck style funeral food (a.k.a. casseroles, cake) along with a wall of photographs from the Eulogy/Wake Workshop held privately for the latituders on Thursday, September 16. The wall was painted pink and had mirrors covered with a black cloth referencing my research into Victorian mourning rituals. Mirrors were covered to prevent the deceased's soul from becoming trapped in them and to prevent mourners from seeing their own reflections and possibly leading to their own demise.

ABOUT WAKE: Wake is an interactive performance project comprised of explorations of death rituals including the writing of (living) eulogies and hosting of (living) wakes. The mission of the project is to encourage participants to (but not limited to) review life through the contemplation of death and to connect to the present.