The Grief Collection
Episodes
Episode 11: Sara Wright - Curiosity and the Artistry of Tending Grief: On the loss of her brother, listening and the resonance of witness
Sara shares the story of her younger brother Tommy's death from testicular cancer at 23, the exhibition Involuntary she created in its aftermath, her years as a hospice volunteer, her artist residency in the emergency department, and — more recently — grief following the death of her father. The conversation moves through death literacy, the power of witnessing, ecological grief, and how art can hold space for the hardest parts of being human.
Following the interview, psychologist Emma Keen joins Bianca to unpack the conversation — covering vulnerability, the importance of language around death and dying, and why grief needs to be witnessed.
Content note: this episode discusses hospice care, palliative care, death and dying.
Episode 10: Peter Westcoast - Talking About Talking About Dying; With a Palliative Care Nurse
In this conversation, Peter talks candidly about what it's like to sit with people who are dying — and their families — and why he believes our culture is so bad at talking about death. We talk about the gap between where people say they want to die and where they actually do, the reality of what caring for someone at home really involves, and why hospice care — done well — can be one of the kindest environments there is. Peter reflects on the language he's had to build for this work: choosing "distress" over "agitation," "calming" over "sedating," and death over the euphemisms so many of us reach for instead. He also opens up about his own relationship to mortality, the toll — and the strange gift — of witnessing death so often, and what he wishes everyone understood before they ever need this kind of care.
This is a raw, generous conversation about presence, language, and what it really means to be person-centred when someone is dying.
Psychologist Emma Keen joins Bianca to unpack the biggest takeaways from the conversation.