Public Art & Death
When our dad was in his final weeks, LV applied for a potentially confronting public art commission, drawing on themes of death, rot & remembrance. And like that, our ECO-DEATH-ART approach was born.
Hello there,
So here we are again, a chance for another little glimpse through The Mortal Portal.
Today we’re looking back on the piece of outdoor public art that prompted us to quit our day jobs (so rash) and set up DEAD GOOD as a full-time deathy social enterprise.
This leap wasn’t exactly an impulse - although we can be very impulsive (merci beaucoup, ADHD) - more like an inevitable following of our combined gut instinct, special interests, and our experience of loss and grief, especially the dying and death of our quirky, excellent dad, Peter.
In many ways, our creative support of Dad in his last year and this initial paid art commission allowed us to gently imagine our sisterly selves into a deathwork space that both fits our values, and supports others to explore mortality, death and grief in creative and eco-friendly ways.
We’ll tell you the story of the Blank Space public art commission first (and how it continues to inspire our work as DEAD GOOD nearly two years on).
And we’ll end with a teeny look at what work we’ve got coming up and the ways you can connect with us (which we’d love you to do BTW - so please don’t be shy now).
P.S. We’re still reeling from finding out yesterday that we’ve been shortlisted for THREE categories at the national Good Funeral Awards, which takes place in September at The Eden Project, Cornwall:
Celebrant of the Year (KV) - oof this is a biggie!
Best Funeral Support (for our community death education)
Best Funeral Memorialisation (for our funeral badges service)
Huge thanks to everyone who nominated us. It’s put an extra bit of pep in our step. And the best of luck to all the finalists. But really you’re all winners to us :-)
The story of the BLANK SPACE public art commission: IT’S OKAY TO DECAY
BLANK SPACE is an opportunity provided by B Arts in Stoke-on-Trent for artists to take time to explore an issue or theme of their choice. The artist has freedom to work with a large outdoor wall space in any 2D medium and adapt/develop/change the work between a set time period. The wall is in a very visible and public space, and on a major bus route, meaning the work will be seen by hundreds of people each day. It’s a great opportunity to experiment with new work and exhibit publicly.
LV had come across the motto IT’S OKAY TO DECAY in the work of AJ Hawkins (please check out AJ’s art and buy her death-rad stickers). We started using the motto as a family, especially when Dad chose a woodland burial over cremation when planning his funeral.
LV reached out to AJ to tell her about the BLANK SPACE commission and to ask if she’d mind if LV used the motto in the public art installation should her proposal be approved. I’m pretty sure LV offered AJ a percentage of the artist fee too. AJ replied with positivity and grace and said LV was free to use the wording and that she felt no ownership over the phrase (thank you AJ, you legend, but it remains important to us that we acknowledge the antecedents of this work!).
So the upshot is that Lindsey applied for the commission under the title IT’S OKAY TO DECAY and B Arts said yes. Below is a section of her application:
"My lovely dad died in February 2022 as I was planning this installation. He was buried in woodland in a hand woven willow coffin. My whole family has a gentle yet practical approach to dying and I want to share with others that it is possible to LIVE FULLY by embracing death as an integral part of the human experience."
LV’s plan was to erect a MASSIVE black and white poster that starkly said:
Remembering
IT’S OKAY TO DECAY
Peter Francis Vigurs
1950-2022
See photo below from installation day.
LV returned to the installation each week and enacted a public process of decay and change upon the piece. She wanted to visually communicate that processes of rot and decay can be wonderfully alluring and life-giving, and that transition can be welcomed (even in death and decomposition). The video snippet below shows some of the changes LV made to the piece over four weeks.
You can watch the full (05:28 mins) video of the installation and its decay over time here (haunting soundtrack by Joanna Newsom, Time, As A Symptom - worth watching for the soundtrack alone).
As part of the project, LV also created a collection of twenty screen prints that she designed and hand-pulled on a pingpong table in her kitchen. She then set about ‘decaying’ each print by adorning them with a variety of hand-drawn moths, mushrooms, worms, algae and other creepy crawlies.
Each IT’S OKAY TO DECAY screen print is unique.
We both have one up in our homes.
For us, it’s a significant piece of personal history that marks the beginning of our DEAD GOOD creative community deathwork.
We have four remaining prints in the collection (see below).
I (KV) had these final four professionally mounted and framed for the Sunderland Arts and Culture Trail, where they were on display at Carnival House and Kitchen.
Each one is signed by LV and I have added a secret hand-written message on the back of each framed print.
Now that the trail has ended, these four large IT’S OKAY TO DECAY FRAMED prints are up for sale in our webshop.
We’d love to see one up on your walls.
Which one tickles your fancy? Little video of the framed four below.
If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about IT’S OKAY TO DECAY as a piece of temporary public art that commemorates our dad’s life and death, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on our Substack or send us an email at hello@deadgood.org.
DEAD GOOD things coming up…
We’ve now recorded our first season of the Puny Mortal podcast with excellent support from Flamingo Heights Podcast Studio (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and the BIPC North East. We’ll be releasing all six episodes after summer, with early listening opportunities for our paid subscribers. Recording Puny Mortal Season 1 was the steepest of learning curves (we’ll share more about this experience another time). We’re really looking forward to sharing the aural outcome and our weird Midlands accents with you soon!
We’ll be talking in public with artist, Brooke Shaden, about our creative deathwork, at her sold-out Promoting Passion Convention at Keele University (Staffordshire, UK) on Tuesday 20th August.
We’ll be running 6 workshops on DIY Eco-Funerals at the free The Festival of Thrift in Billingham on 21st and 22nd September. Would be great to see you there! More info on this soon.
Hope to see you somewhere soon.
L O V E Y O U B Y E