Life:Moving

Using Film to change understandings of dying

Play Video

COMING SOON:

Prof Michele Aaron – the academic behind Life:Moving – talks with Dr Jed Jerwood about the importance of the films and the ‘toolkits’ that they have developed as a result of the project.

About Life:Moving

The Life: Moving project was a unique collaboration between researchers, a filmmaker and hospice patients that explores the power of film to communicate the meaningful and honest experiences of those affected by terminal illness.

Through weekly workshops, participants at John Taylor Hospice were given the skills and support to create their own audio-visual stories. The six films that emerged not only challenge the misrepresentation of the dying, rife in society, but provide invaluable insight into the participants’ experience and needs. They also show how film can be used to shift individual and social attitudes, and practices, concerning human vulnerability.

Discover Life:Moving’s research findings and recommendations in our Scoping Report.

We’ve now created two training resources – a clinical toolkit and a creative toolkit – in order to share the films, and the research behind them, with a wider audience.

Project timeline

The Life:Moving Films have now been shared with communities on three continents. Through the toolkits, we’re hoping that they will enhance clinical and wellbeing practice, shift understandings of human vulnerability, and support the development of similar therapeutic and creative projects around the world.

2016 - 2017

Workshops at John Taylor Hospice: Six films produced

We thank all the staff at JTH in Erdington, Birmingham, for their support.

2017 - 2018

Films and Research shared regionally, nationally and in Europe

Following the local launch of the exhibition, the films were displayed and discussed at various clinical and cultural settings.

Learn more about our past ‘Events’

2019

Life:Moving Onwards
International
dissemination

Thanks to additional AHRC funding, we were able to share the films and research in a wide range of clinical, cultural and community settings in East Africa and Australia.

Learn more about ‘Life: Moving Onwards’

2020 - 2021

Development of Online Training Resources

The completion and launch of the Toolkits were scuppered by the covid pandemic.

2023

The Life:Moving Toolkits launch at Compassionate Communities Conference in Birmingham, UK July 11-12 2023

The Participants

At the heart, and as the heart, of this project are the six individuals to whom it is indebted:

Yussef Ahmed, Andrew Burchall, Rob Homer, Fran Tierney, Keisha Walker and Peter

Learn more about them and their films here

Toolkits

We’ve built two training resources out of the Life:Moving project.

The Clinical toolkit has been designed for the end of life care community, for all those who wish to better understand the experience of the terminally ill, and for anybody terminal illness, it provides a framework for using the films in clinical, community or educational settings in a safe, structured and generative way.

The Creative toolkit (in progress) provides a framework for using the films and research as best practice for the replication of the project – or provision of a similar project – in clinical, community or creative settings.