The Way to the Brave is Just the Same

Death is certain for one who has been born... you should not lament over the inevitable.
- Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 27

Love and death, walk hand in hand
The way to the brave,  is just the same
- "Love and Death", Ebo Taylor

 We live in a moment surrounded by markers of death: global wars, active shooter drills, extreme weather, pandemics, and in the US our last two presidents are in their twilight years, their demise a political calculation. In the disability service field there are constant reminders of the finiteness of human existence. During four short years, the studio I run has experiences five of our artists passing away. Death is one of the realities of a field that supports individuals with disabilities predisposed to greater health risks. But even beyond our studios, death is simply a reality of life. For all of us, whether we accept it or not, we live within death's specter.

Yet, mortality is not the negative often portrayed, particularly in America whose culture tends towards a celebration of eternal youth. Many other cultures embrace death, not as the end but part of an existential transition, or moment that sets forth a series of interactions between the living and the dead, or even a system of multiple deaths and rebirths. We need not escape the inevitable; to understand death we should embrace it, lean in, accept the reality. It may be scary but the inevitable fuels our inspiration, curiosity, love, and compassion.

Most importantly, death drives our creativity. Humans striving to understand our existence incites us to leave a mark through the things we make, tangible or intangible, whether a painting, a tasty blueberry pie, a bathroom remodel, an unbelievably efficient Excel spreadsheet, or a loving family. And death gives rise to our joy at experiencing the things we or others create, which communicates our fragile human experience.

The artworks in this show both celebrate and shield the inevitable. They represent symbols that cheer the macabre or defiantly protect against its power. They mark the time of their creation or define each artist's footprint. Yet, most of all they claim space, as monuments to their creators' existence.

Anthony Marcellini is an educator, curator, writer, and artist. He is the founder of the Progressive Art Studio Collective program, Detroit, MI. He has produced exhibitions, lectures, public cultural events, and projects, with a focus on social practice, public art, and disabilities, in cultural venues and universities across the world. For over nine years he has taught studio art, curatorial practice, theory, and art and design history, at colleges and universities in the United States and Europe. From 2018 to 2020, he was the Programs and Exhibitions Manager of the Friendship Circle Soul Studio, a studio for adults with disabilities in West Bloomfield, MI. At Soul Studio Marcellini expanded the studio program and worked to align Soul Studio to the history and ideology of progressive art studios and disability culture. In 2021 Anthony developed and launched the Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC) where he is is the PASC Program Manager. PASC is the first progressive art and design studio in Detroit and Wayne County dedicated to supporting adults with developmental disabilities and mental health needs to advance independent artistic practices and individual career paths in the art and design fields. PASC is a program of the disability services organization Services to Enhance Potential (STEP). Marcellini received his MFA in 2009 from California College of the Arts with a concentration in Social Practice.