Memento Mori in NYC: The Art of Japanese Life and Death

Memento Mori in NYC: The Art of Japanese Life and Death is a two-day festival at RESOBOX that brings together artists, thinkers, and makers from Japan and New York to explore life through the lens of death. It opens with a live encoffining ceremony by the nōkanshi Koki Kimura, who with his father served as technical advisor on the Academy Award–winning film Departures, alongside a calligraphy performance by Taisan Tanaka. Visitors can see an art exhibition by more than 20 Japanese artists and craftspeople, attend talks with a Zen teacher, a death doula, and a death-literacy researcher, try a coffin experience and write their own epitaph, and browse a marketplace of Japanese crafts, urns, and keepsakes. No knowledge of Japanese is needed and all are welcome, whatever their beliefs.