Death & Creativity

What: DEATH AND CREATIVITY explores connections between mortality, aliveness, and creativity by introducing participants to core principles and concepts drawn from the fields of death work, life coaching and creative practice.

In this two-hour session, we’ll look at contemporary discourses and practices around death and creativity, and engage in hands-on exercises to integrate the workshop’s tools and themes, all expertly guided by Kate Muehlman-Cataldo, artist and death doula, and Justine Williams, artist, creative coach and educator.

Where: We will meet in Prospect Park for a walking activity through the lense of life and death, then we will gather at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture for an Olio.

Who:

Kate Muehlemann Cataldo (she/her) is a visual artist and death worker who cares for terminally ill people through the time of death, and advocates planning for end of life through increased dialogue. Her creative practice is very often influenced by exploring human-ness in relationship to mortality, and her work with dying draws on creative exploration and artistic practices. Kate has worked as a Registered Nurse for nearly 20 years, most recently in Hospice & Palliative Care. In 2020 she received training as a Death Doula (non-medical aspects of care). More info on her art and her death care.

Justine Williams (she/they) is a creative artist working across theater, film, social practice and pedagogy. In her work, Justine strives to evoke (and invoke) a sense of theatricality, pathos and play. At the Yale School of Drama and at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she leads courses based in theories of play, approaches to creative process and the principles of collaboration, and she contributes to the pedagogical design and ongoing work of Anti-Oppressive & Anti-Racist theater practices. More Info

Host or Publisher Think Olio