Enhancing openness around death and dying thorough documentary film making in a hospice

Abstract

In this article I reflect my own journey in engaging with art in a hospice setting in order to enable one of Cicely Saunders’ key principles of facing death to be embedded in practice. Exploring the possibility of use of art in a hospice setting was triggered by findings from my own PhD work on ‘being with’ that highlighted the difficulty of engaging with death and dying in a hospice. This, later, lead to an art project I undertook in another hospice with a documentary film maker culminating in making of the film ‘7 Songs for a Long Life’.