recon•structing shiva : a note from Noah
At the time Emet was in hospice, Noah was the faith coalition manager for the National LGBTQ Task Force. Noah staffed the national conference on LGBTQ Equality in January 2019 in Detroit. There was an art studio at the conference. At the conclusion of the conference, Noah was responsible for packing up the art studio. Noah could not bear to dispose of the art created by queer and trans folks, and brought it back to Philadelphia, where it found a second life as part of the larger art gallery in Emet’s hospice room.
Noah wanted Emet to die surrounded by beauty and the love of queer and trans people. Each time someone visited, they made art, and then added it to the gallery, the way a mourner might place a stone on a grave. After Emet passed, Emet’s friends chose the pieces of art they wished to keep. The art gallery is one way of seeing the passage of time, as the art gallery grows, as the art moves from one hospice center to another and then to shiva, and then finally as the art is framed in the homes of our friends, and the banner is carried at protests.
Shayn photographed the art. Niko drew the pictures of Emet. Sarah Giskin made the New Friends Always Welcome Sign. Noah did much of the attaching of art to the walls, usually with whatever was around, most often stickers or rainbow tape. Notice the disability and illness stickers attaching the resilient art to the wall.
Hospi•ce Hospi•tality
The hospice space itself became a kind of art project that we did together. The space was transformed in such a way that many people compared it to a dorm room. One would not recognize it as a hospice room. It proved to all of us that suffering itself can be transformed. It was not that the community came to Emet. The community itself formed around Emet. Emet offered his hospice room as a location for organizing meetings, for hangouts, for havdalah. If there was a party or a meeting, he wanted to be there, so just hold the meeting in his hospice room. Rather than hospice being a site of departure, it was a place for settling in together. Who knew hospice could be a place of hospitality?
