Exhibition

The word marras means dead or dying, describing the time of year when nature withers and spirits wander. This November, artist-run kitchen and bakery space Koekeittiö hosts curator Katie Lenanton’s Marraskahvila (Death Cafe) exhibition project. Through workshops, community events, artworks, and music, audiences are invited to navigate and celebrate different approaches to death, dying, mourning, and bereavement.

The exhibition slowly grows from the beginning of November, through bread baking gatherings, a kekri sauna celebration at Muamo, a corpse cookie publication launch, and a community dinner. Sign up to the mailing list on Koekeittiö’s website to receive news about the full program.

On Saturday 21.11, you are welcome to come by for coffee, snacks, art, and chats. There are edible artwork experiences to taste, books to browse, and looped video artworks to watch, totalling approximately ~45 minutes in duration.

On Sunday 22.11, coffee service, snacks, tastings, and chats continue. 

At ~15, you are welcome to join a miniature lament-writing workshop with Finnish-Karelian artist Mirva Haltia. Karelian lamenting is a part of spoken Karelian heritage. Laments are an everyday skill, and a sacred form of communicating with the beyond. Are you a bearer of these traditions, or looking to understand what anyone can learn from Karelian lamenting, and what should be left untouched? We’ll explore both perspectives in this workshop. You will learn more about Karelian lamenting, and write a miniature lament that draws on your own cultural heritage. Bring a pen and paper.  Facilitation in English, supported in Finnish and Karelian.

At ~16, a story will be shared which urges us to both collectively forget and remember, while a gluten-free sandwich cake artwork by Meri Linna is cut and served. The work explores memory through the preservation and decay of stories, inspired by Onkalo, Finland’s long-term nuclear waste repository—a piece of contemporary history deliberately planned to be forgotten for the safety of future generations. 

A Death Cafe is a mid 2000s DIY social structure which aims to normalise speaking about death, a topic we’re often socially conditioned to find difficult. Anyone can host their version of this non-denominational gathering, but the common denominator is a generous approach to food, drinks, and conversation. 

In a Death Cafe, participants are encouraged to talk openly, share experiences, and ask burning questions. It’s not intended to be therapy or a form of grief support, and while it’s gently facilitated, the aim is for the group to co-create a conversation without a pre-planned agenda. 

This Marraskahvila aims to start such conversations through music and artwork prompts, such as artist books, bread sculptures, drawings, edible artworks, films and videos, funerary urns, mourning objects, sandwich cake experiments, textiles, and a limited edition corpse cookie publication.

Browse reading material including Cindy Milstein’s Rebellious Mourning: The Collected Works Of Grief; Angjolie Me’s Dying To Meet You: Confessions of a Funeral Director; and Marc Fischer’s Protest Grim Reapers.