Death and dying are ever-present. We live through an era of mass extinction, reverberating with grief of colonial violence, capitalist extraction, environmental destruction and climate catastrophe. How can we learn from holistic palliative care practices to bring our personal experiences of loss to planetary care?

With Ends in Mind is a series of itinerant gatherings convened by Undead Matter. They will bring together practitioners across fields engaged in being with the dying, from palliative care workers and death doulas to ecologists and activists. Through conversations and shared rituals, we seek to learn new ways of being present, weaving interconnections between individual grief and collective ecological urgencies.

Launched in the final week of Karrabing Film Collective’s exhibition, Night Fishing with Ancestors, holding our dead and our fragilities with us in the present, With Ends in Mind, will collectively reimagine futures, nurture agencies and seek new ways of being.

With a growing collection of provocations/texts offered by artists, writers, thinkers, ecologists, death doulas and activists, including Verity Brit, Tree Carr, Adriene Jenik, Michael Marder, Adam Moore, Harun Morrison, Astrida Neimanis, Elizabeth Povinelli, Filipa Ramos and Aliya Say.

We invite you to attend with your departed in mind, as well as those unborn and those in the future who may never be; human and more-than-human.

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Gatherings shift in focus, holding a multitude of loss from personal grief, infertility, sickness or broken relationships to ongoing colonial legacy, political violence, climate breakdown and mass extinction.

If you are interested in hosting or collaborating on a gathering, please get in touch: [email protected]