2025 Festival
Exploring Life and Death Through Tattoos, Poetry and Parks
The programme of a dozen or so events for our 2025 AMOLAD festival proved a satisfying mix of established and emerging favourites, and a trial of brand new ones, culminating in a pop-up event on death and creativity at the Library of Birmingham which alone drew 150 visitors.
Open and trusting conversations between strangers at Death Cafes prompted suggestions of how to best to support loved ones nearing end of life, shared experience of grief and loss, and signposting for sources of support. Initially inspired by the wonderful festival of the same name in Scotland, To Absent Friends in Northfield provided an opportunity to share a photo or story of a loved one who has died, to speak their name and – such a powerful thing, this – collectively celebrate and remember them.
Death over Drinks
Our Death over Drinks event provided our participants with an intergenerational opportunity to ponder death-related questions like What is most important to you in life? What happens when we die? What do you think about taking photos at funerals?
New events to the Festivals
We welcomed the opportunity to form new relationships and try new events and formats this year, each bringing a different kind of audience. A drop-in session, The Comfort of Poetry at Thimblemill Library in Smethwick, invited people to choose or share poems they find consoling: A welcome session following a recent – and unexpected – bereavement. Found comfort in many of the poems. At the Lucky Rabbit Tattoo shop in the Jewellery Quarter there was a sell-out presentation and conversation inspired by memorial tattoos.
Contrasting with the popular annual death-themed city walks tour by Kevin Thomas, the great outdoors at the Lickey Hills was the venue for a remembrance and writing walk lead by poet Giovanni Esposito AKA Spoz, and Holly Winter-Hughes, poet and therapeutic writing practitioner.
For the first year this year our Festival culminated in an event at The Library of Birmingham and welcomed participants, exhibitors and workshop leaders to host. We drew in a wide variety of people from those who knew about the Festival to many who did not and were both interested and pleased to talk about the topic of death and dying.
We were also delighted to develop new partnerships with podcasters, Emma and Carrie – taking the scene by storm with interviews and discussions about death, dying and grief on their podcast, ‘It’s a death sentence’ They joined us at our closing event and grabbed a number of people to interview.
BrumYODO provide safe spaces for open conversation about death, dying and loss.
One of the themes that has emerged from this year’s AMOLAD is where are the safe civic spaces that exist for this? Our happily revived relationship with Birmingham Museums Trust for events at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and our new relationship with the Library of Birmingham and local libraries, have extended our reach, and we look forward to building on this.
Among commercial venues, the humble pub, too, is emerging as a safe space for chat for some communities, with landlords requesting our input.