This cohort is now full. If you are interested in joining the waitlist or a future group, please email virtual care lab (virtualcarelab@gmail.com) + Ari (ari@ari.fyi). You can also participate asynchronously through the open channel #grief-and-death on virtual care lab's Discord.

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Queering Death
Hosted by Ari Simon with virtual care lab
Meets biweekly Wednesdays, 5-7pm PST: 1/6, 1/20, 2/3, 2/17, 3/3, 3/17, 3/31

Queering Death is an intergenerational community learning group for exploring beyond the stigmas, stereotypes, and taboos of the inevitable end of our lives. Following its inaugural round earlier this year as part of NAVEL’s Assemblies program, Queering Death will welcome a new cohort starting in January 2021 to collectively learn from unique visions of end-of-life practices, share desires around aging and dying, hold space for our own grief, and illuminate the unique relationships LGBTQIA+ peoples have to death and memorializing. Led by facilitator, engagement practitioner, and artist Ari Simon, Queering Death welcomes participants into a three-month journey marked by biweekly virtual meetings and culminating in a co-created final project.

This round of Queering Death will be a 3-month intergenerational cohort consisting of biweekly group meetings (on 1/6, 1/20, 2/3, 2/17, 3/13, 3/17, 3/31), independent explorations, and optional collective experiences. It will live within virtual care lab, a platform for creative experiments in remote connection that seeks to create opportunities for genuine presence, purposeful online/offline connection and collaboration, and digital well-being.

The suggested contribution for the workshop is $50-100 sliding scale (slightly under $10 - 20 per session) that will go towards project labor, administrative costs for virtual care lab, and other possible expenses as decided by the group. Please plan to participate in all sessions, and contribute what you can; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About the host: Ari Simon is a facilitator, personal coach, community engagement practitioner, and artist. Through their practice, Inner & Outer Engagement, Ari currently leads stakeholder engagement for environmental policy plans such as West Hollywood’s WeHo Climate Action, provides facilitation and strategy sessions to a range of California-based organizations, coaches one-on-one clients, and leads a monthly men’s consciousness-raising group. Through writing, drawing, map-making, workshops, and more, Ari loves to explore topics such as civic engagement, the public realm, loneliness, personal geographies, queerness, and death. Ari resides in Los Angeles and Idyllwild, CA.