End of life at home: co-creating an ecology of care

Last night was the launch of the 'End of life at home: co-creating an ecology of care' report and exhibition (which I put together/curated) at the Liverpool Hospital, NSW.

There's some newspaper articles about the report here:
ABC: Overhaul of Australian health system needed to allow people to die at home: study

And here:
SMH: 'Be there and be available' when someone is dying: Caring at End of Life palliative care report

Here also is a link to the book I produced as part of the exhibition:
End of life at home: the photographs - It includes some writing which sums up my feelings about working on such an amazing project!

NORTH - WEST

Opening Wednesday 14th October, 2015

Dying to Know Day - 8 August 2015

Yesterday I was very fortunate to host my second Dying to Know Day event, a Death Café in Katoomba. My first was last year when I ran a Death Café in Saint-Louis, Senegal on 8 August.

There are some great blog entries on the Groundswell Project website for Dying To Know Day, including my own that was published yesterday. Here's the link: 

http://www.thegroundswellproject.com/new-blog/

Thank you to everyone who came to Death Cafe yesterday, all 26 of you!

Death Café Blue Mountains @ Music Hunter the Experience pop-up shop, Katoomba

8 August 2015 Dying To Know Day

Death Cafe - a place to talk openly about dying

Thank you Belinda for writing up an article for our local paper, the Blue Mountains Gazette!

Article link:
http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/3208028/death-cafe-a-place-to-talk-openly-about-dying/?cs=1180

Death Cafe Blue Mountains - Dying to Know Day 2015

The next Death Cafe Blue Mountains is running in conjunction with Dying to Know Day - August 8.

D2KDay is an annual day of action in Australia dedicated to bringing to life conversations and community actions around death, dying and bereavement.

For more information and see other events happening around Australia on August 8 go here - http://www.thegroundswellproject.com/dyingtoknowday/

Images from DEATH at Casula Powerhouse

I'm very sad to say goodbye to this exhibition, it was wonderful exhibiting alongside some fabulous artists: 

Declan Apuatimi, England Banggala, Carla Cescon, Ronnie Djanbardi, Simon Gende, Nora Holland, Richard Lewer, Thomas Munkanomi, Tony Pilakui, Samuel 'Marbuk' Poantimului, Patrick Pound, Clementine Puruntatameri, Tracy Puruntatameri, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Helen Shelley, Laurens Tan, Hayley West

Casula Powerhouse DEATH

'Death becomes child's play'

The DEATH exhibition and a little about my work has been featured in the Art section in today's SMH!

Artist Hayley West with her five-year-old daughter Ramona, who is cuddling a rabbit she stuffed herself, in their Blue Mountains home. Photo: Janie Barrett

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/death-becomes-childs-play-in-hayley-wests-art-at-casula-powerhouse-arts-centre-20150525-gh6ib1.html#ixzz3bCQmBtw6

Copper Beech, Katoomba

My work for Portal to K-Town responded to the nautical traces found in the home (such as the porthole in the bedroom) with the tragedy of lives lost at sea.

Concrete Wreath 

Foam & plaster, 50 cm ø x 12 cm, 2015

Burial Shroud

Cotton & fish scales, 190 x 112 cm, 2014

Cemetery Wall

Digital print, 420 x 594cm, 2014

PORTAL TO K-TOWN

MAP (Modern Art Projects) presents its next exhibition in the Art & Architecture Series. 

PORTAL TO K-TOWN, is an exhibition guest curated by internationally renowned contemporary artists Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro in an art-deco house designed by Donald Thomas Esplin with Paul Sorenson garden named Copper Beech in Katoomba The Blue Mountains. 

Invited artists inhabit the building for a day and present a unique dialogue in response to the architecture and provenance of a building that eclipses earlier art deco styles and modern functionalism. 

Artists featured: Damian Dillon, Mark Gerada, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Martin Kirkwood, Tobias Richardson, Joan Ross, Suzann Victor and Hayley West.

TICKETS (FREE!) MUST BE BOOKED THROUGH EVENTBRITE TO RECEIVE ADDRESS:
Eventbrite Booking Page

Saturday 25th April, 2015 

1pm - 4pm  ONE DAY ONLY!

Inch’Allah [God willing]

Photos (taken on residency in Senegal) from the online project that suddenly disappeared when the online platform (JUX) I used disbanded without warning:

PROJECT LAB 3 - c3 contemporary art space, Melbourne

Inch’Allah [God willing] is an everyday saying I’ve grown to love in Saint-Louis. Spoken mainly at the end of sentences as a way to agree without confirmation (let’s meet tomorrow – yes, Inch’Allah) or as a response to a question without a necessarily positive outcome (can I have your phone number? – Inch’Allah!) The answer is left to fate, Inch’Allah is chance. This project positions random images with random personal thoughts, much how living here has become. Nothing is processed with ease.

MAGENTA

'Death of a Swallow... Inch'Allah' 2014 Photograph, 31cm x 46 cm

MAGENTA

Curator: Beata Geyer
Artists: Louise Blyton, Sue Callanan, Adrian Clement, Fiona Davies, Beata Geyer, Shavaurn Hanson, Joel Lambeth, Tom Loveday, Ian Milliss, Tobias Richardson, Margaret Roberts, Hayley West, Caroline Wilde, Kayo Yokoyama

The grouping of artists with very diverse art practices and approaches to art production explores the notion of magenta, both as concept and as percept, in various imaginative contexts. Artist and curator Beata Geyer presents this exhibition as a multi-layered installation where different artistic responses merge to create an exciting viewing experience. Magenta is contained not just within the pictorial or spatial spectrum but also within the conceptual multitude of perspectives and overlay of forms and dimensions. The interaction of colour between form, material, space and architecture unlocks the multitude of meanings attempting to define what magenta potentially is.

WEST Project Space

38 Railway Pde, Hazelbrook, New South Wales 2779

Saturday 7 March 2015, 2-4pm 

Facebook Event Link HERE

I Remember You

On 14th March 2015 I'm participating in the Art Not Apart Festival in Canberra. Here's a little about my project, ever wanted to experience a Death Café or lie on a cooling bed?

Upstairs, I Remember You invites viewers to engage with her one-on-one. Upon entering the space you will lie down on a cooling bed. While on this death bed, you are asked to contemplate an object/s that you will leave for someone once you are dead. 

Take a selfie and post #irememberyou alongside a hashtag of your object and who it will be left to, for example:
#irememberyou #goldring #Ramona
#irememberyou #ProHartPainting #anyone

Downstairs, A Death Cafe will serve biscuits, tea and conversation about death. The objective is to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives. It's no small matter and no small movement. To date 15457 Death Cafes have popped up around the world.

Pecha Kucha

This Friday (tomorrow night) I'll be giving my third presentation at Pecha Kucha. This time i'll be rabbiting on about the Grottoes of the Blue Mountains.

My interest is in the fabulously grotesque concrete structures built in the 1930s-50s. Check out my other blog for some great photos - it's a work in progress: Blue Mountains Grotto Love

Better still, come along to Pecha Kucha at the Carrington! Pecha Kucha Night - Feb 6, 2015

My Death Café presentation was selected for 'Presentation of the Day' last year on the official site, I'd had a few champagnes so am very lucid...! - Pecha Kucha - Death Cafe