Death Festival programme announced 11-12 Nov, Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, Brighton
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), the Brighton-based arts centre at the University of Sussex, today announces an inspiring and enlightening programme for ‘Death Festival’ (11-12 November).
Bookending the lives of every single one of us, birth and death are the core elements of the human condition and something that unites us all. Yet, whilst births are commonly celebrated, we remain reluctant to face up to death and dying. Death Festival encourages us to consider death and dying through two days of talks, concerts, performances, workshops and installations.
The brainchild of Jude Kelly, Founder and CEO of The WOW Foundation, the inaugural Death Festival has been programmed by Jenna Mason in collaboration with the writer and activist, Catherine Mayer, theatre director and ACCA patron, Michael Attenborough and artist, social innovator and University of Sussex researcher, Louise Harman (Louise on Death).
Respectful and at times irreverent, the packed programme invites audiences to share their own stories and hear from academics, artists, undertakers and broadcasters, airing their different perspectives on death.
Programme highlights include: an installation of portrait photography by world-renowned photographer Rankin; an evening of performance of letters to the lovely and beloved dead by those mourning them, including author Catherine Mayer writing to her close friend, Paula Yates, whose death was treated as a tabloid sensation; a Jude Kelly in conversation event with Mina Smallman, who will share her journey of grief, rage, faith and activism following the murder of her daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole in June 2020; a workshop on honouring and remembering loved ones with @thegriefcase founder Poppy Chancellor; Amber Jeffrey, founder of The Grief Gang podcast, in conversation with Anna Burtt, co-host of The Mother Of All Losses, how podcasting has enabled them to find a community as they share their experiences of grieving their mothers and maternal figures.
In the way that a fitting memorial can be revelatory, or the presence of humour in a well-observed wake can lighten the load, Death Festival aims to shed some light on a subject too often consigned to the shadows.
The inaugural Death Festival, to be held at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) in Brighton, is intergenerational, inclusive and representative of the diverse and divergent cultural contexts and social issues that shape death across the UK and beyond.
Hospice UK is the charity partner of Death Festival, bringing voices, experience and expertise from its Dying Matters campaign to help change the conversation about death and dying. Death Festival is supported by DeadHappy, life insurance to die for.
Programme highlights include:
● See an installation of portrait photography by world-renowned photographer Rankin.
● Hear Jude Kelly in conversation with Mina Smallman, mother the Smallman sisters who were brutally murdered in a north London park in June 2020, who shares her journey of grief, rage, faith and activism.
● Join Louise Harman (Louise on Death) and Cara Mair, founder of Arka Funerals to find out what choices we have about the body, burial and memorial of a loved one.
● This evening of performance of letters to the lovely and beloved dead by those mourning them including author Catherine Mayer writing to her close friend, TV presenter Paula Yates, whose death in 2000 was treated, like her life, as a tabloid sensation, novelist and screenwriter Nikesh Shukla writing to his mother, whose death coincided with the launch of Shukla’s career as a writer,and Monika Radojevic, inaugural winner of Stormzy and Penguin Random House’s #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize, writing to the grandparents she didn’t have the chance to know, like so many children of immigrants.
● Hear from a panel of researchers, campaigners, artists and grief support workers as they discuss LGBTQ+ experiences of dying, death and bereavement.
● Honour and remember your loved ones in a workshop with @thegriefcase founder Poppy Chancellor.
● Explore the role of cooking and eating in a time of loss.
● Play a game of Death Euphemism Bingo and party to a collective Last Dance Disco.
● Hear from Death Studies scholar John Troyer as he shares how his own encounters with death and dying have changed the way he thinks about the everydayness of grief.
● Join Amber Jeffrey, founder of The Grief Gang podcast, and Anna Burtt, co-host of The Mother Of All Losses podcast as they talk about maternal loss.
● See reflections of Pakistani women’s experience of caring for people at the end of life.
● Join a workshop to reflect on death in homelessness.
● Consider the racial and ethnic disparities in access, quality and outcomes of end of life care with Dr Jamilla Hussain.
● Join Isabelle Farah for a comedy show that explores grieving, authenticity, and being funny.
● Take part in BRiGHTBLACK’s interactive digital installation to help you consider your relationship with dying.
Jude Kelly said: “If we had a bolder, clearer, more courageous, and more tender relationship with death, might we find life more joyful? Might we approach our fears with more courage and exhilaration? We’ve talked so much about the numbers of dead across the world recently, so why don’t we – the living – have a crack at really thinking about death in depth, whilst we’re still around to do so.”
ACCA’s Creative Director Laura McDermott said: “Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, on the University of Sussex campus, is the perfect host venue for this multifaceted festival, bringing together artists, researchers, activists, journalists, broadcasters, charities and social enterprises. Over the weekend we will reflect on a range of different perspectives on death and dying – many drawn from personal experience.
This programme has been brilliantly curated by the team at Jude Kelly Studio, in collaboration with alumni from University of Sussex: Louise Harman (awarded the Social Impact Prize from University of Sussex for her social enterprise Louise on Death), Catherine Mayer and Michael Attenborough. We hope to institute Death Festival as an annual event and build on the partnerships and connections we have started to develop this year.”
Death Festival
11-12 November 2022
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), Brighton
Tickets: Friday evening (£12/£10), Saturday evening (£12/£10), Saturday Day Pass (£15/£12)
Visit Death Festival for ticketing information.