Death By Design

Reimagine End of Life is a community-wide exploration of death and celebration of life through creativity and conversation. Drawing on the arts, spirituality, healthcare, and design, we create weeklong series of events that break down taboos and bring diverse communities together in wonder, preparation, and remembrance.

322 Events

105 Art Exhibits

60 Interactive Rituals 32 Performances

15 Comedy Shows

1 Universal Topic

The five boroughs of New York City are joining together to create over 250 events exploring death and celebrating life...from all perspectives.

After attending a Reimagine event, over 90% of attendees identified feeling more grateful for their lives and the people in it.

Death by Design Podcast partnered with Reimagine NYC to have an open conversation about end of life. It was an amazing evening.

Dr. Dawn Gross - Palliative Care Physician

Elizabeth Coplan - Playwright - The Grief Dialogues

MK Czerwiec- RN & Artist

Kimberly St. John - Palliative Care Nurse - UK

Linda Campanella, Author and Caregiver

Andrew MacPherson - Principal at Healthsperien

Alison Gilbert - Journalist & Author

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Emmy and Peabody award-winning, film producer, director and writer Helen Whitney has been a prolific creator of documentaries and feature films. Her compelling subject matter has included topics such as youth gangs, presidential candidates, the McCarthy era, mental illness, Pope John Paul II, Great Britain’s class structure, homosexuality and photographer Richard Avedon. Among the actors she has worked with: Lindsay Crouse, Austin Pendleton, David Strathairn, Brenda Fricker, Teresa Wright, Estelle Parsons.

Throughout her career, she has maintained a deep interest in spiritual journeys, which she first explored with her documentary The Monastery, a 90-minute ABC special, about the oldest Trappist community in the Americas. Whitney followed this film with a three-hour Frontline documentary for PBS, John Paul II: The Millennial Pope, and in 2007 she produced The Mormons, a four-hour PBS series that explored the richness, complexities and controversies surrounding the Mormon faith. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, she produced Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, a two-hour documentary that examined how religious belief – and unbelief – of Americans was challenged and altered by the spiritual aftershocks of 9/11. The film has been repeated numerous times since it first aired in 2002, and it was a PBS featured presentation on the 1st and on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

One of Whitney’s recent works examines the power, limitations, and in rare cases, the dangers of forgiveness through emblematic stories ranging from personal betrayal to genocide. This film involved shooting throughout America, and such countries as South Africa, Germany, Rawanda, The three-hour series, Forgiveness: A time to Love and a Time to Hate, aired on PBS in 2011 and it also inspired Whitney to write a book of the same title, with a forward written by the Dalai Lama.

The filmmaker has also received an Academy Award nomination, the Humanitas Prize, Emmys, two DuPont-Columbia Journalism Awards and many other recognitions for her work. She is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and has presented her films and lectured at universities, museums and churches around the country (including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Brigham Young, Stanford, the National Cathedral, the Corcoran Gallery, the Minneapolis Art Institute). 

Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death, a two-hour feature documentary, features fascinating, unexpected voices from various walks of life: old and young, believers and nonbelievers, the dying and the healthy, well known and obscure. Among them: Caitlin Doughty, an alternative mortician and bestselling author with her own YouTube following; Adam Frank, an astrophysicist and NPR commentator, Gabriel Byrne, renowned actor of stage and screen; Jim Crace, award-winning novelist and environmentalist; Max More, a cryonicist and futurist; Stephen Cave, a British philosopher; Phyllis Tickle, a near-death experience spokesperson and religious historian; Pastor Vernal Harris, a Baptist minister and advocate for hospice care in African-American communities; Jeffrey Piehler, a Mayo Clinic heart surgeon. However varied their backgrounds, all are unified by their uncommon eloquence and intelligence, and most important by their dramatic experience of death. Each of them has been shocked into an awareness of mortality–and they are forever changed. For them death is no longer an abstraction, far away in the future. Whether through a dire prognosis, the imminence of their own death, the loss of a loved one, a sudden epiphany, or a temperament born to question, these are people who have truly ‘awakened’ to their own mortality.

Into the Night creates a safe smart place that allows people to talk about a subject of universal importance. It is the conversation we yearn to have, but too often turn away from in fear and distress. Yet our culture is at a critical turning point, driven in part by the baby boomer generation that is insisting on a new openness and on this deeper conversation. Our film speaks to this emerging movement with a novel approach meant to provoke searching conversations, both private and public.

Ultimately the film is meant to raise questions, not to provide answers. How could it? Death is “that undiscovered country,” as Hamlet so famously described it, “from whose bourn/No traveler returns.”

https://www.intothenightdoc.com

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Filling the Gap in End of Life

In August 2018, Cabot Cheese became the top sponsor of the Live Well Die Well Tour. When Kimberly C. Paul asked Roberta MacDonald why Cabot was interested in being the top sponsor she stated, "We are a Co-operative of Farm Families since 1919, our farmers have seen the cycle of life and death on the farm. They taught their children about life and death. The farmers have found a way to normalize the life cycle conversation. We thought we might help assist you and others on your Live Well Die Well Tour." Cabot Cheese sends cheese to all Kimberly's speaking engagements when requested.

Cabot Cheese has also has supported many Hospice projects as well as the death doula program at the University of Vermont. Roberta MacDonald has been the fire-starter and continues to personally volunteer her own time at her local hospice.

Death is a natural part of life. Even so, talking about death feels anything but natural.

According to the National Palliative Care Center, 20 percent of the United States’ population will be over age 65 by the year 2030—that’s more than 60 million people. Chances are, a significant portion of these seniors will be diagnosed with a terminal illness.

A recent article in the New York Times reported that, on average, patients make 29 visits to the doctor’s office in their last six months of life, even though 80 percent of patients say they hope to avoid hospitalization and intensive care at the end of life. Our healthcare system is designed to save lives—or attempt to do so—regardless of the outcome or impact on a patient’s quality of life. However, our healthcare system is only beginning to recognize the value of high quality end-of-life care.

Fortunately, there is a growing movement that helps fill the critical gap in end- of-life care. For the terminally ill, dying is a process they’re living through. End of-life doulas (also known as death doulas, soul midwives, transition coaches, and more), help the dying live better throughout the process—and ultimately die well.

https://www.cabotcheese.coop/blog/end-of-life-care/

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FRANK OSTASESKI is a pioneer in end of life care. In 1987, he cofounded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. He guided that groundbreaking work for almost 20 years establishing a longstanding model for mindful and compassionate care. In 2005, he founded the Metta Institute training countless healthcare clinicians and caregivers and building a national network of educators, advocates and guides for those facing life- threatening illness.

Frank has dedicated his life to service. It has been fusion of spiritual insight and practical social action. It manifests in caring for the homeless, serving on the early front lines AIDS epidemic, lobbying congress, teaching meditation and most daunting raising four teenagers at the same time.

He has distilled hard-won lessons from his own life journey and synthesized 30 years of being with dying into his personal brand of wisdom. He inspires and engages diverse audiences from Harvard Medical School students, to Mayo Clinic clinicians, and Wisdom 2.0 seekers. His work has been highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, featured by Bill Moyers on his PBS television series On Our Own Terms and honored by H.H. the Dalai Lama.

He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

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Since her book, Bridging the Gap, was published on April 13th, 2018, Kimberly is on to her next adventure of speaking throughout the United States. But she is doing it a little differently than anyone expected. In June 2018, she bought an RV, downsized her belongings and hit the road with her German Shepherd, Haven. Kimberly has named her adventure the “Live Well Die Well Tour” because she states, “The more I talk about death, the more boldly I feel I’m living life to the fullest.”

The tour jump started in Ohio alongside her ex-boyfriend’s parents (the boy who lost his life to cancer over 18 years ago). Kimberly states, “It was a way to put meaning into the beginning of the tour – to make sure it is always personal.” Now she is making her way through every state, with exception of Hawaii, to connect with people and communities, sign books and share how she learned to live life boldly at the bedside of hospice patients.

The Live Well Die Well tour is supported by over 20 sponsors including Cabot Cheese, My Last Soundtrack, Amedisys Hospice, INEDLA, National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, POLST Paradigm and many more who support community education in an effort to empower individuals to reclaim death as a human experience and not a medical event.

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Mark Nepo moved and inspired readers and seekers all over the world with his #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening. Beloved as a poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark has been called "one of the finest spiritual guides of our time," "a consummate storyteller," and "an eloquent spiritual teacher." His work is widely accessible and used by many and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages. A bestselling author, he has published twenty books and recorded fourteen audio projects. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation. And in 2016, he was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People, and was also chosen as one of OWN's SuperSoul 100, a group of inspired leaders using their gifts and voices to elevate humanity. In 2017 Mark became a regular columnist for Spirituality & Health Magazine.

Recent work includes More Together Than Alone (Atria, 2018), Things That Join the Sea and the Sky(Sounds True, 2017), a Nautilus Book Award Winner and cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2017, The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Sounds True, 2016), a Nautilus Book Award Winner, The One Life We're Given (Atria) cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2016, Inside the Miracle (Sounds True), selected by Spirituality & Health Magazineas one of the top ten best books of 2015, The Endless Practice (Atria), cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2014, his book of poems, Reduced to Joy (Viva Editions), named by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2013, a 6CD box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in Reduced to Joy (Sounds True, 2014), and Seven Thousand Ways to Listen(Atria), which won the 2012 Books for a Better Life Award.

Mark was part of Oprah Winfrey's The Life You Want Tour in 2014 and has appeared several times with Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. He has also been interviewed by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America.  The Exquisite Risk was listed by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2005, calling it "one of the best books we've ever read on what it takes to live an authentic life." Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He continues to offer readings, lectures, and retreats. Please visit Mark as well at: threeintentions.com and http://wmespeakers.com/speaker/mark-nepo

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Jen Johnson is a mindfulness teacher, board certified health and wellness coach, and mindfulness therapist. She is also a photographer and writer. Jen teaches meditation for healing and creativity and mindfulness for health and wellness.

Jen offer mindfulness training and coaching, mindful life coaching, and wellness coaching to help you feel inspired and excited to wake up to your life every day. She will teach you how to develop a regular mindfulness practice and integrate it into everyday life.

Jen has been a mindfulness teacher and therapist for 30+ years, and she has had a camera in her hand since she was 7 years old.

Jen Johnson’s work is a blend of:

• mindfulness training, coaching, and therapy
• mindfulness based cognitive therapy
• mindfulness-based stress reduction
• wellness coaching
• writing meditation
• mindful writing for healing, therapeutic writing, and expressive writing
• photography meditation and therapeutic photography (phototherapy)
• EcoTherapy
• Energy psychology (EFT & TWR/WHEE / tapping) 

Jen Johnson’s work is grounded in neuroscience research and the neuroplasticity of the brain and how we can rewire the brain for greater peace and happiness. She has studied brain science since the early 1980s while working in the Neurotoxicology Division of the Health Effects Research Lab at the EPA and working with clients with brain injury at Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in the mid 1990s. Jen’s work with trauma survivors began in the early 1990s while serving as Helpline Director for a child abuse prevention crisis hotline. I then worked with spinal cord and brain injury survivors at Shepherd Center and later worked on a contractual basis as the statewide Coordinator for Independent Living Needs for the Veterans Administration in Georgia, and then creating a grant funded project, Invisible Wounds of War, that offered mindfulness, photography, and writing workshops for veterans.

Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom.—Tara Brach

Jen has been a featured expert in magazines, radio, TV and blogs. Click the media links below to read Jen’s articles and interviews.

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Mike Fleming serves as the chief growth, marketing, and development leader for Amedisys Hospice where he is responsible for 83 hospice agencies across 22 states, bringing the gift of hospice to more than 70,000 patients over the past three years. In addition to his hospice responsibilities, Mike leads Amedisys' 800-person home health business development team and has developed innovative ways to drive employee and community engagement, online marketing, sales productivity, and product/program quality. Mike also is the architect for this nationwide Being Mortal educational initiative and has facilitated more than 100 Being Mortal workshops across the country, reaching more than 2,000 healthcare professionals. Prior to joining the Amedisys team, Mike spent six years as VP of Marketing for VistaCare Hospice and also has held leadership roles in several multi-hospital health systems.

Mike left his job at Amedisys Hospice in the Spring of 2020.

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Baylor Scott & White Health is one of the first health system to add child life specialists to our healthcare team in the adult setting. The child life specialists provide emotional and behavioral support to children who have seriously ill or injured adults in their lives. They are part of the Baylor Scott & White Health Supportive and Palliative Care team. 

BSW Health created this program with positions called Child Life Specialist to support these children through the process of an adults illness.  This program is providing the foundation for these children to have a healthy way to deal with real grief at a young age.  Many children who don’t receive this type of service end up dealing with their own grief in unhealthy ways as they grow into adulthood.

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