The Dying Matters Community Grants Programme funds innovative arts projects which aim to start conversations about dying and grief with communities who are less likely to have received such support.
At Dying Matters we want to see a society that’s better able to deal with these challenging but inevitable experiences. The arts, in all its forms, can play a vital role in creating spaces where these conversations can flourish.
2023: a growing programme
At the programme’s inception in 2022, we received huge interest, with 140 applications from arts community arts groups around the country.
After funding an initial four projects, with the generous support of end-of-life services provider, Dignity, we are excited to fund a further eight.
Dying Matters Awareness Week: 8 – 14th May, 2023
The selected projects:
The eight selected projects range from public art works, songwriting workshops, talkaoke’s (read on to find out what this is!), and a giant puzzle project. The projects vary but they all demonstrate innovative and creative ways of approaching the subjects of death and grief.
1. What I think about when I think about Death – Arts Connection – Cyswllt Celf
Arts Connection – Cyswllt Celf, are a participatory arts charity working with schools, children, young people, people with learning disabilities and the wider community to offer increased involvement and participation and a welcoming bilingual doorway into the arts.
Taking place in Llanfyllin and surrounding areas, their Dying Matters Community Grant funded project will see four artists use poetry, song, storytelling and drama to explore death and grief with people living in rural areas.
Siân Walters, Arts Manager from Arts Connection – Cyswllt Celf said:
“The past couple of years we’ve been really aware of the impact not just of people dying from Covid but also the ability of people to attend funerals or see loved ones during the pandemic. We live in a rural community where many people know each other and a death can have a big impact on a range of people and we felt that now, more than, ever is an important time to talk about death.”
2. Music Over the Rainbow – B:Music
B:Music’s mission is to inspire a love of music, through performance, participation and learning. With two venues in Birmingham City Centre – the Town Hall and Symphony Hall – they offer a range of musical experiences which break down barriers, empowering people from across the region to enjoy the power of live music.
They will be using their grant to hold songwriting and poetry workshops on the themes of loss, death and dying, for LGBTQ+ people. These will culminate in a public performance of work developed in the sessions.
B:Music explained:
“We felt songwriting and poetry would be a very effective tool to explore the themes of death and grief; and developed a programme to work in depth with a number of people from the LGBTQ+ community whilst also providing a vehicle to amplify their voices enabling further conversations around end of life care for the LGBTQ+ community.”
3. Stories of death, grief & lives well lived – Ballynafeigh Methodist Church
Ballynafeigh Methodist Church seeks to serve the local community by offering unconditional hospitality, promoting creative expression and community cohesion. They host a community choir, serve meals and run monthly arts and storytelling events.
They will be using their grant to run storytelling workshops led by theatre makers and performers, to provide participants with a space to write and share stories about illness and death. The workshops will culminate in an evening of storytelling and performances at the church.
Ballynafeigh commented:
“Telling and hearing stories of loved ones is an important way of processing grief. However, for the more isolated groups in our community, chances to share stories can be reduced. We want to provide workshops across different community groups connected to Ballynafeigh Methodist Circuit which will help people tell their stories and process their experiences.”
4. Homos & Houmous – Inconsolable
Homos & Houmous is a queer Jewish performance collective, incorporating drag, comedy, live klezmer (traditional Eastern European Jewish music), poetry and politics.
They will use their Dying Matters Community Grant to support the development of their first theatre show Inconsolable, which will present Jewish death and dying rituals from a queer perspective.
5. 1000 Conversations about Death – The Spire Arts & BRiGHTBLACK Productions
Artists Myra Appannah and Simon Wilkinson of Brighton-based BRiGHTBLACK use immersive videogame technologies to create radical video game worlds.
‘1000 Conversations about Death’ is an immersive virtual 1-2-1 experience where participants enter a beautiful video game world, meeting two virtual characters who open up a conversation about death.
Following the success of the project’s launch in 2022, BRiGHTBLACK will create a large-scale collective experience based on those conversations. They will create a dramatic audiovisual experience inspired by the conversations and a year of research into death practices, grief and loss.
6. Circle of Life – Ignite Imaginations
Sheffield-based Ignite Imaginations use the arts to connect communities across the city.
Their Circle of Life Project will deliver visual arts workshops with groups from five minoritised communities in Sheffield. Through creative activities, they’ll explore the rituals, symbols, words and images each group associates with death and dying, working together to develop representative artworks.
The works will be exhibited in Sheffield City Centre as part of Dying Matters Awareness Week in May 2023.
7. Piecing it Together – EAVA FM
EAVA FM is a multi-lingual community radio station that serves the diverse communities of Leicester.
They’ll be using their grant to create a public art installation with their youth group. This will consist of a giant 24 piece MDF jigsaw that facilitates participants to discuss and better understand their views on ‘Dying Matters Because……’. Each jigsaw piece (roughly A3 in size) will be decorated by the young people to illustrate their points of view and reflect their own cultural opinions on why and how Dying Matters.
The resulting giant jigsaw will be displayed at various locations across Leicester and form the basis of social media campaign during Dying Matters Awareness Week, with a launch event subsequently taking place in Leicester city centre.
8. “If you’re watching this…then I’m dead” – The People Speak
The People Speak is a group of artists and cultural producers based in East London, whose work aims to help people understand each other and collectively process the complexity of the world. They create fun, interactive participatory formats and interventions in the UK and abroad.
Their flagship format ‘Talkaoke’ is a live, television-style talk show that pops up at festivals, youth clubs and street corners. It’s simple: the host sits in the middle of an illuminated round table, and you sit around the outside and talk about whatever comes up.
The People Speak commented:
“Death shouldn’t be taboo. We want to find fresh perspectives on the subject, celebrating and reframing death as both an end and new beginning. Through Talkaoke talk show-style events and workshops, we want to foster dialogue among young people of different faiths and backgrounds in Tower Hamlets about valuing life and considering the legacy we leave behind.”
For more information about Dying Matters go to: https://www.hospiceuk.org/our-campaigns/dying-matters
Lead Photo Caption: Ballynafeigh Methodist Church
Dying Matters Awareness Week:
From 8 – 14 May 2023, we’re encouraging communities across the country to come together to talk about death, dying and grief in the workplace.
Leave a Reply