Arts-based approaches are effective tools for researching and sharing knowledge about ‘taboo’ topics like death and dementia.
Their multi-sensory, accessible nature helps convey complex experiences, reveal inequities, and educate diverse audiences about health and illness. Research shows these approaches can foster empathy, stimulate reflection and dialogue, and influence practice and policy, while transcending literacy barriers to broaden reach and impact.
In this project, we chose three arts-based mediums to share, in different ways, important messages in the ‘Dying on Our Own Terms’ Framework:
- research-informed documentary films
- digital stories
- visual art (Coming soon)
Research-informed documentary films
The team worked together, and with film director/producer Anthony Grani, to co-create two documentary films grounded in our research and the 'Dying on Our Own Terms’ Framework. The films target diverse audiences.
Dying on Our Own Terms
What does it mean to have a say in how we live and how we die when living with dementia?
Dying on Our Own Terms is a short documentary film for people living with dementia and their families that explores compassionate relational caring at end-of-life through deeply personal perspectives of people impacted by dementia. Developed collaboratively and based on research with people living with dementia, family carers, and healthcare professionals, the film challenges stigma associated with dementia, dying, and death. It asks us to look beyond a dementia diagnosis and recognize the whole person—their identity, values, relationships, priorities, and hopes for their end-of-life.
The film explores what it means to honour people's wishes through early and open conversations about end-of-life and to support them to remain connected to the people, places, things, and pursuits that matter most throughout the final chapter of their lives. Dying on Our Own Terms is an invitation to communicate honestly, care differently, and imagine an end-of-life in which people living with dementia are heard, respected, and supported to die on their own terms.
It’s Time to Talk About End-of-Life
What does compassionate relational caring at end-of-life look like for a person living with dementia and for their family carers and healthcare professionals who support them?
It’s Time to Talk About End-of-Life is a short documentary film for healthcare professionals that invites us to re-imagine care at end-of-life through the voices and experiences of other healthcare professionals, as well as people living with dementia and family carers. Through the breadth of these perspectives, the film offers critical reflections on current practices and on the importance of ensuring that care at end-of-life is shaped by relationships, listening, compassion, and the voices of those who experience it.
Grounded in research and created collaboratively with people living with dementia, family carers, and healthcare professionals, the film explores what relational caring at end-of-life can look like, why that matters, and how it can be supported in practice. It’s time to talk about end-of-life and about how we can care differently.
Digital stories: Death, dying, end-of-life and dementia
Perspectives of people living with dementia and young carers
The team partnered with Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice to support people living with dementia and young carers in the creation of digital stories about their experiences.
Seven digital stories—two created by people living with dementia and five by young carers—were produced to raise awareness among young carers about dementia and the importance of discussing end-of-life wishes. These stories highlight end-of-life conversations while sharing the lived experiences of both individuals with dementia and the young people who support them.