hey, i’m morgan
and I made this thing.
In 2012, my mom suddenly in a car accident. Since then, Mother's Day has always been a challenging day for me.
A few years ago, just before Mother's Day, I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw a post titled 10 Best Mother's Day Gifts. At first I thought "here we go again." Then I realized that just as much as I wanted to tell my mom "Happy Mother's Day," there are probably hundreds of other people feeling the exact same way, as well as many mothers who want to hear it. I thought, "What if I were able to foster connection between people experiencing grief on this day?"
That's how A Different Kind of Mother's Day was born.
It's a chance to find community and connection on a day that can feel lonely and isolating. It's a way connect with someone who understands that Mother's Day isn't always celebratory. It is an opportunity to work towards collective healing (& make a new friend while you're at it).
This isn’t the only thing I do. But a lot of my work revolves around talking about death.
In 2012 my mom was killed instantly by a commercial truck driver swerving into her lane. That's when I realized a few important things: Few people talk openly about death, even though it is one of the most fundamental aspects to being alive; Few people know how to support those who are grieving, and when they try it is often inappropriate or offensive; Grief is messy, far from linear, and is something we all share — whether it is grief for ourselves, for others, or for the world.
What started out as some honest Instagram captions about the death of my mom, an obsession for literature on death and dying, and a desire to talk about mortality in every conversation no matter the setting, has turned into a collection of projects, installations, and social experiments. You can see more on my website morganmichelebrown.com. When I'm not working on new and existing projects, I travel in my 1970 VW van named Bessie.
