Leila collects art that’s made of human hair and displays it to the public at a museum bearing her name in Independence, Missouri.
July 11, 2018 | Blog
They’re Not Morbid, They’re About Love: The Hair Relics of the Midwest
The Macabre, Unknown Origins of Father’s Day
The Monongah Mine Disaster is recognized as the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history– and you’ve likely never heard about it. The disaster occurred in my hometown of Monongah, West Virginia. On…
June 16, 2018 | Blog
1918: The Forgotten Year of Death
No other epidemic or pandemic has claimed as many lives as the Spanish Flu, not even the Black Death in the 14th century or AIDS in the 20th century — 100 years later, why have we forgotten the deadliest pandemic in history?
May 30, 2018 | Blog
Sigrid Sarda’s Waxworks of Death and Desire
Waxwork artist Sigrid Sarda’s work explores the intersections of sex, death, and mortality. Here, our own Sarah Chavez talks to Sigrid about her new series The Unrequited, which is about loss, grief, and redemption.
May 23, 2018 | Blog
Motherhood on the Battlefield of Death
What was so powerful about these Aztec mothers that their corpses had to be guarded from warriors?
May 13, 2018 | Blog
Cabinet of Curiosities: The Jizo Statues of Japan
These little stone statues resembling plump-cheeked children belie a mournful purpose.
May 13, 2018 | Blog
An Interview with My Mother, A Grave Gardener
It is because of my grave gardener mom that I’ve grown to become a death-positive woman. I’m a woman who considers death a part of life.
April 18, 2018 | Blog
Cabinet of Curiosities: Victorian Death Dolls
We hope you enjoy our new series, Cabinet of Curiosities, that looks at the objects that have helped us prepare for dying, ritualize death, and mourn the dead.
March 25, 2018 | Blog
The Oldest Rite of Humanity and My Father’s Wake
“Sonny was a very ordinary man and his life passed unnoticed by a wider world. But Sonny did have one advantage over most of us; he knew how to die. And he knew how to do that because his fathers and mothers on the island, wake after wake, had shown him how.”
March 17, 2018 | Blog
Caring For a Community of the Dead
Writer and cemetery tour guide, Allison Meier spoke to Anthony Pisciotta, a man who frequently passed by a deteriorating cemetery in his community and decided to take action.
March 1, 2018 | Blog
Baltimore’s Mount Auburn Cemetery: Autonomously African & Free from White Control
Baltimore’s Mount Auburn Cemetery proudly stands as a living memorial of Black history
February 26, 2018 | Blog
What I Wish I’d Given Him: Grappling With Gifts For a Dying Family Member
Gift-giving in the shadow of death.
February 17, 2018 | Blog