Talking about death, loss and grief is hard. So hard, most of us avoid it. But by sharing experiences, making connections and starting conversations, there are people trying to change things.

The death positive movement is all about speaking openly about death, in the belief that it shouldn’t have to be morbid or taboo. If we can get more comfortable talking about this stuff, our society will be healthier for it.

We’ve done a deep dive and found some brilliant organisations, websites, podcasts and articles that also explore death in positive ways. You might find them interesting too…

Good Grief Festival

The crème de la crème of tackling the taboo, Good Grief Festival is a virtual festival all about love and loss. You can catch up on their past events, articles and conversations by subscribing to their Grief Channel.

Compassionate Cymru

Working with individuals, communities and organisations, Compassionate Cymru is on a mission to improve how people care, die and grieve in Wales.

Griefcast

If you’re looking for a podcast to delve into, Griefcast by Cariad Lloyd examines the human experience of grief and death with some great guests.

Empathy Museum

The Empathy Museum’s From Where I’m Standing is a series of audio stories inspired by sentimental objects. One of the many brilliant conversations is from Claire, who speaks candidly about losing her mum.

The Griefcase

We love this Insta account, ‘the channel where anything and everything is on the table when it comes to grief.’ They have open submissions and meet ups for people to share their stories and continue the conversation around death and loss.

The Loss Project

Aiming to create a ‘loss positive culture’, The Loss Project connects people experiencing grief and loss in local communities, to transform and even celebrate our experiences so that we feel less alone.

Endwell Project

Endwell Project brings together people with backgrounds in health, technology, design, policy and activism to transform our thinking about serious illness, caregiving, grief and end of life.

Death Over Dinner

American-based Death Over Dinner invites you to host a dinner to discuss ‘the most important and costly conversation America isn’t having’. Providing you with prompts and hosting tips, they walk you through how to bring friends, colleagues, even strangers together to start you own conversation.

We’ll continue this conversation over the next few weeks, either here or on our social channels. We’ve been inspired to do so by our new production Circle of Fifths.

As a national theatre company, we talk about how we can act as a mirror and a microscope for our collective understanding. To spark conversations or shift change in some way.

Gazing hard into the themes and ideas that Gavin Porter and co are looking at at the heart of Circle of Fifths has opened up a whole world of amazing, progressive change-making work happening out there, that we’ve been compelled to explore more of.

There is a quiet but powerful, compassionate movement to end the stigma that exists around grief and dying. This feels fundamental to us all. Compelled by this area of social change, we reached out to some of the people doing this hands-on work.