Language and the Altar

On the occasion of Le’Andra LeSeur: Monument Eternal, LeSeur brings together death doulas Resham Mantri and Trishia Frulla to lead a two-day workshop examining the enduring effects of grief. Together, they will explore how grief is embodied and carried through collective memory. They will also highlight the role of the personal archive as a vital act of care that disrupts cycles of violence and systemic erasure.

“In a society where we are living in the shadows of colonialism, slavery, mass violence, and capitalism, our focus and attention has been trained to jump from one violent act to the next. In acknowledging deep, often generational grief, we understand better how to care for ourselves. We begin to slow down. This is the cornerstone. The backbone of love. We aim to bring love, acceptance, honesty, and joy to our grief work. This is how we create new worlds that inherently resist what is no longer serving us.” — Resham Mantri

Language and the Altar

A workshop which explores writing your own obituary, writing to honor the lives of those we know primarily through death, love letter writing, and community altars.

Sunday, November 23
3:00 - 5:00 PM
Gathering Place

Free with limited capacity.
Please Register to reserve a spot and for location details.

Part of the weekend series On Death, Grief, and the Importance of the Archive. Other programs include:

Monument Eternal Community Deathwork Educational

Saturday, November 22 & Sunday, November 23 | 10 AM - 12 PM | Tulsa Artist Fellowship Project Space | Register HERE

A two-day hands-on, heart-forward workshop led by death doulas aimed at practicing and modeling community deathcare. Learn about the work of death doulas, how this work is already happening all around us, and how you can do it for your people.

Notebooks, writing utensils, and light snacks and beverages provided. This workshop unfolds over two sessions, offered on both Saturday and Sunday.

Listen, Dance, Breathe

Saturday, November 22nd | 3:00 - 5:00 PM | Tulsa Artist Fellowship Flagship & Fly Loft | Register HERE

Let’s explore how our bodies remember. A gently guided movement meditation to help participants feel, reflect, and integrate their experiences from Le'Andra LeSeur’s Monument Eternal through embodied awareness and care. No previous dance or movement experience required.

ABOUT THE DEATH DOULAS:

Mala (she/they), also known as Trishia Frulla, is a queer FilAm artist, designer, and death doula rerooting in Luiseño Territory (Escondido, CA). Her art weaves together stories of trauma, ancestry, and becoming—which powerfully informs and is informed by her concurrent practice as a death worker. Guided by curiosity, love, and devotion, Mala tends to life’s thresholds, where loss gives way to renewal, and care becomes ritual. Their practice supports and has been supported by Ulirat Gatherings, Community Deathcare Digest, the School of Liberating Education, Art.Coop, and various activist spaces. Through her studio, HypoFutures, she guides endings and designs beginnings—reflecting purpose, and cultivating networks of care that stretch across time and space.  hypofutures.com / @designing.doula

Resham Mantri is a multi-hyphenate heart-forward human. She is a deathworker, herbalist-in-training, writer, artist and single co-parent of two children living with her mother and dog in an intergenerational home in Brooklyn. Resham makes art as a way of exploring grief practices across cultures, how we live together, and the power of loving.  She holds in-person and online group spaces around grief, death, and possibilities. She writes personal essays and has had her essays and interviews appear in other publications. She runs a small online shop with vintage textiles from India. Resham holds degrees in and has worked in fields of law and computer science and continues to explore about how we attempt to live together in loving societies. Reshammantri.com  Instagram: @reshamgram

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Le’Andra LeSeur is a multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses a range of media, including video, installation, photography, painting, and performance. Her body of work, a celebration of Blackness, queerness, and femininity, seeks to dismantle systems of power and achieve transcendence and liberation through perseverance. Through the insertion of her body and voice into her work, LeSeur provides her audience with an opportunity to contemplate themes such as identity, family, Black grief and joy, the experience of invisibility, and what it means to take up space as a queer Black woman—a rejection of the stereotypes which attempt to push these identities to the margins. The artist has received several notable awards, including the Tulsa Artist Fellowship (2024-2026), Leslie-Lohman Museum Artists Fellowship (2019), the Time-Based Medium Prize, and the Juried Grand Prize at Artprize 10 (2018). LeSeur has appeared in conversation with Marilyn Minter at the Brooklyn Museum, presented by the Tory Burch Foundation, and has lectured at The New School, NY, NY, and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, among others. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at MFA Boston, Boston, MA; Swivel Gallery, NY, NY; The Shed, New York, NY; Marlborough, New York, NY; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Assembly Room, New York, NY; Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Arnika Dawkins, Atlanta, GA; and others. Residencies include Pioneer Works, iLab at The University of the Arts, Visual Studies Workshop, ArcAthens, NARS Foundation, Marble House Project, and MASS MoCA.

ABOUT TULSA ARTIST FELLOWSHIP

Established in 2015, Tulsa Artist Fellowship was created as a place-based initiative by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) that addresses pressing challenges faced by contemporary artists and arts workers living in and joining Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa Artist Fellowship believes the arts are critical to advancing cultural citizenship and supports community-invested practitioners who intentionally engage with our city.

Our exhibitions and events are free, documented, and archived.

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

Gathering Place is a park for everyone. It is a park built to full ADA compliance, where "equal play" is a common denominator for many of our park elements. The park is committed to providing a safe and fun space for all park guests. For additional information and accommodations, visit gatheringplace.org/accessibility.