About Death & Arts
Why death + arts?
Death can be scary and overwhelming.
It is not meant to be dealt with all by our lonesome.
We believe that gathering together to:
experience visionary art,
share pragmatic resources to help plan for death,
make space for conversation, reflection, and advocacy
creates life-affirming changes– in an otherwise dysfunctional dying culture– for individuals, their communities, and society at large.
Mission
Too often, the systemic and cultural structures that shape our approach to aging, dying, and grieving in the US are isolating and alienating.
Philly is home to brilliant people who are thinking deeply about death. They are dancers, palliative care physicians, poets, hospice nurses, musicians, mothers, social workers, singers, death doulas, elders, and caregivers. People whose hearts are breaking.
PDAF gathers these folks to build a more connected public culture around aging, dying, and grieving, one that centers communal and individual experiences, practices and traditions.
History
Philadelphia Death & Arts Festival was founded in 2024 when a group of artists, death workers, and cultural producers gathered to envision a festival that paired live performance with practical death education.
In 2025, the first festival brought hundreds together at Laurel Hill Cemetery for four days of performances, workshops, panel discussion, and shared reflection.
As we move towards the future, PDAF is continuing to build relationships with artists, death workers– and people who identify as neither– already doing the work of envisioning a liberated dying culture.
When Philly choreographer Annie Wilson became a death doula in 2020, she noticed:
Individuals facing death within our existing systems who were often isolated, with limited options and not enough community support,
Artists creating visionary work that imagined more expansive ways of caring for one another, mourning our individual and collective losses, and facing death and collapse with heart and courage,
Brilliant death workers actively working to build new systems that can support us as we age, die and grieve.
The PDAF Visioning Committee
Select a member to read their biography.
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Our Partners and Friends
