Arts Council England backs a landmark arts festival at Newcastle, Exeter and Redbridge libraries this May and June – bringing the UK’s pioneering Death Positive Library movement to a national stage for the first time, in partnership with Co-op Funeralcare, with a new commission by Moving Parts Arts, led by Festival Director Dr Stacey Pitsillides of Northumbria University
Newcastle City Library today announced the Afterlives Arts Festival — a free, family-friendly arts festival coming to Newcastle (8–9 May), Exeter (16–17 May) and Redbridge (6–7 June) 2026. In partnership with Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure, Libraries Unlimited and Northumbria University, the festival will engage over 15,000 people across 36 events in a programme that uses creativity and storytelling to open up conversations about death, dying and end-of-life choices.
Afterlives is the culmination of nearly a decade of pioneering work. In 2017, Redbridge Library Service became the UK’s first Death Positive Library Service – using books, art, film, community events and speculative design installations to help residents engage openly with death and dying as a health and societal issue. Newcastle City Library joined the collaboration, extending the model from east London to the north east in 2019, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Carnegie UK and the Wolfson Foundation, and developed in collaboration with Northumbria University, the project won the Edge Award for social innovation and, in 2025, the national APSE Best Health and Wellbeing Initiative. Its approach has since inspired libraries across the UK and Northern Ireland to become death positive spaces.
Libraries are uniquely placed to lead this work: unlike hospices or funeral providers, they carry no commercial or institutional stake in end-of-life decisions, making them rare spaces of genuine independence where communities can explore these questions freely. Together, the three partner library services reach a combined population of over one million people and welcome more than 1.6 million visitors to their central libraries each year – a scale of trusted public reach that no other cultural institution can match. Afterlives now takes this further still, introducing Exeter and the rural communities served by Libraries Unlimited to this partnership for the first time.
Each city’s central library will be transformed into a vibrant hub for the duration of the festival – reinventing the library as a space where books, art and human experience converge to make conversations about mortality feel natural, joyful and community-owned. Co-op Funeralcare joins as core sponsor and community partner, connecting its national network of funeral directors and Member Activators directly into communities ahead of each event, with a shared commitment to ongoing collaboration around Dying Matters Week and Grief Awareness Week.
“We are excited for the opportunity the Afterlives Festival gives us to continue connecting our funeral directors into our communities. Libraries are exciting spaces for collaboration through arts and culture, and we look forward to exploring everything this initiative can bring.”
– Tessa Wiley, Business Partner, General Counsel, Co-op Group
The centrepiece of the festival is Immortelles — a spectacular new public artwork commissioned from Moving Parts Arts, the Newcastle-based visual and performing arts organisation. Led by Artistic Director Kerrin Tatwood, Moving Parts Arts will work with three artists and run community workshops at each location, inviting residents to contribute their own icons, treasures and symbols to the final installations, leaving a lasting legacy in each library.
“Immortelles is about giving communities the chance to shape something that genuinely belongs to them — a piece of art that holds their stories, their grief and their joy.”
– Kerrin Tatwood, Moving Parts Arts
The festival is directed by Dr Stacey Pitsillides, Associate Professor at Northumbria University, whose decade-long research on death, creativity and technology was the academic driving force behind the Death Positive Library from its origins at Redbridge Central Library. The wider programme features Luna Arts’ A Seat at the Table (conversations around food and memory) and Shroud Making Workshops; Dead Good’s children’s natural burial workshops and film nights with Wayfaring Cinema, including the interactive stage play BATMAN aka Naomi’s Death Show; MOTH studio’s Symbols of Death installation; Resting Reef’s eco-burial exhibits; and Soul Paint, an award-winning VR experience that invites participants to explore their inner world through digital painting.
The festival addresses a pressing national need. Marie Curie’s research found that 84% of people want to talk about death, yet only 14% have done so, while funeral costs have risen 134% since 2004. The evidence for the Death Positive Library approach is already strong: 85% of participants in previous initiatives left feeling more confident discussing end-of-life choices, and Vision Redbridge’s 2024 Day of the Dead Festival drew over 10,000 public interactions – demonstrating the unique capacity of libraries to open conversations no other public institution can.
“Libraries are places where ritual and imagination coincide. Our Afterlives festival will meet people where they are — with art, stories and experiences that make talking about death feel human, joyful and real.”
– Dr Stacey Pitsillides, Festival Director
“We are incredibly proud that Vision Redbridge is part of bringing the Afterlives Festival to a national audience. As home to the UK’s first Death Positive Library Service, Redbridge has been at the forefront of helping communities engage openly and creatively with conversations around death and dying. This festival reflects the very best of what libraries can be – trusted, independent spaces where art, learning and community come together to support wellbeing. We look forward to welcoming residents to Redbridge libraries in June for what promises to be a powerful, thought-provoking and deeply human experience.”
– Martin Solder, Chair of Vision Trustees
