WHO ARE WEStudio Mortem is a community based initiative dedicated to increasing death literacy, reducing the stigma surrounding mortality, and creating spaces where people can engage in honest, compassionate conversations about death, grief, and what it means to be fully alive. Through shared dialogue, ritual, and creative experiences, we foster connection, belonging, and a healthier relationship with life's most universal experience.
|
WHAT WE DO
|
Here rests a wanderer,
a symphony of light and dark,
the creative mind that tirelessly strived
to connect the living + the dead
from no place or time
--
of many unlike most.
ABOUT
|
Jay Davani is Providence’s pioneering death advocate—a multifaceted artist, speaker, and hospice grief facilitator with a passion for exploring life’s final frontier. Born in Tehran, Iran and now based in New England, she embraces death positivity with high ethical standards, inviting conversations around mortality that are both profound and transformative.
Jay is an experienced Death Cafés facilitator and completed Ayatana’s Death Residency at a renowned death-positive thanatology school for artists, where she delved into the practical, cultural, and existential dimensions of death and mourning. Her work has taken her to respected venues including the RISD Museum, North Burial Ground, Biophillum Death Club, and she has served as a Santa Muerte Artist in Residence, capturing the interplay between cemeteries and Persian death rituals through evocative photography. In addition to planning funerals, memorials, and organizing estate clean-outs, Jay actively participates in Life and Death Cafés, doula and grief trainings, and death book talks, further cementing her role as a transformative voice in the dialogue around life, death, and rebirth. |
E X P E R I E N C E
Mortem Death School — Graduate
Santa Muerte — Artist in Residence City of Providence — Death Cafe Facilitator Edge of Being — Immersion Artist Hope Hospice — Grief Support Facilitator MBSR Certification S P E A K I N G
Art of Mourning — Fondazione Maddalena
Ritual + Revolution — RISD Museum Tenants of Death — Wurks Studio Ritual + Revolution — RISD Continuing Ed Beyond the Forbidden — Lifting the Lid Festival Forbidden Space — North Burial Ground P R E S S
Q&A WITH ARTIST JAY DAVANI
Pell Center, November 2024 TALKING ABOUT DEATH TCS Monitor, May 2024 PIONEER IN DEATH INFLUENCE Motif Magazine, October 2023 OUR REGIONS FIRST DEATH INFLUENCER RI Monthly Magazine, September 2023 |
