The Philadelphia Death and Arts Festival imagines that any Philadelphian who will die, or loves someone who will die, will have access to a culture of dying that centers our humanity, our care for each other, and our love for the greater world.

We gather people to grapple with death in ways no other platform does

Watch the 20-minute documentary about our inaugural festival below

"This wasn’t a typical conference or academic gathering. It was something far more experimental and communal. The open-air installations, the care with which presenters and performers approached their work, and the intentional blending of art and advocacy made this feel like a true festival of life through death."

—Saharra Dixon, Collective for Radical Death Studies
"There was a lot of vulnerability and a lot of curiosity. I was struck by how excited/enthusiastic people were. I felt like people really wanted to connect and share their experiences with grief and with death."
"Very significant the comfort around talking about death, somehow. Didn't feel taboo, but rather welcomed, joyful in the solemnity & truth. I felt I had met community who could meet my grief where it was at as opposed to feel sorry for me. Even if there was not always direct communication around it between us, I felt like I had opened a practical doorway to how my continued grieving self can interact and be in community with others, enmeshed with art."
"I felt I had met community who could meet my grief where it was at as opposed to feel sorry for me. Even if there was not always direct communication around it between us, I felt like I had opened a practical doorway to how my continued grieving self can interact and be in community with others, enmeshed with art. "
"To be able to focus on grief, loss and the inevitable, dying so openly was something i did not know i needed, yet did. it cracked me wide open. Thank you."
"This was a FANTASTIC festival and I'm so glad I was able to attend due to your accessible pricing options. Thank you for making this important information available to more people!"
"The diversity of artistic offerings—from performance to visual art to panel discussions—made the weekend feel vibrant and expansive. "
"I know that one day after my parents die, I will write you all and tell you how the show with them was one of the greatest gifts you could have ever given to me.
"I think that PDAF embodies a truism about deathcare which is that in order to draw people in, you need to find the intersection of death and something else to facilitate people wanting to enter the space and I think art is a really expansive way to do that because it is naturally creative and I think is especially accessible for BIPOC folk/traumatic/sudden death grievers."

-Isabel Knight, The Death Designer, Philly Community Deathcare
"[I was excited by] the way people gathered. There was a lot of vulnerability and a lot of curiosity. I was struck by how excited/enthusiastic people were. I felt like people really wanted to connect and share their experiences with grief and with death."
"I love the arts and/but feel uncertainty and confusion and desire to be with other people around death. Putting them together made me able to get past any hangups or hesitation about a festival on death to participate and feel some groundedness in being together."
"The festival itself helped me mold and re-mold my relationship to death. it gave me so many tangible practical facts and learnings that i know i would otherwise be too afraid to seek out to learn on my own."
"The topics of the educational workshops as well as the experiential/somatic workshops is what would draw me to a festival like this. To be able to learn/understand more about death and dying from a practical standpoint paired with opportunities to feel what comes up is a great framework to approach a heavy and challenging topic."
"Being able to walk around the cemetery, pop into workshops, have 1:1s in the grief corner, made me feel so alive. it made me feel less scared to talk about death."
"At age 70, I'm learning and so much is new as I age, my body changes, I've never been this old before, lol! Curiosity make[s] the journey less daunting and joining others makes it meaningful. making aging, illness, and death a normal part of being alive... the use of the arts... are so important to me."
"What felt exciting: hearing other people's sense-making around death and grieving- seeing it transformed artistically so that I might find my way to my own grief/grieving experience."
"I loved how arts and ritual were used to open up a space for this death-phobic overculture to explore, express, evoke, experiment, learn, celebrate, etc."
"The festival held my wonder and inspired a great chapter of upcoming visual arts works."

Our flagship, biennial festival

The festival weekend generates a communal watershed of approaches and ideas with artists, deathworkers, and attendees.

At the festival, we offer:

live performances

by visionary artists

practical education

led by brilliant death workers

reflective spaces to rest,

process, and connect with others

Next one scheduled for 2028.

EXPLORE PAST FESTIVALS

The 2025 Festival

Our first festival ever took place at the historic Laurel Hill Cemetery and hosted performances by 5 featured artists along with 15 workshops and 3 reflection spaces

See the Full Festival Program Here

NON-FESTIVAL EVENTS AND PERFORMANCES ACROSS PHILLY

Community-Embedded Programs

These programs are tributaries: embedded in Philadelphia’s cultural centers, senior organizations, and with groups of friends and loved ones. They allow for intimate conversations that deepen over time and inform the festival weekend.

Upcoming Events Across Philly

Jan 31

Our next event will be featured here.

Stay up-to-date about our programs and the festival by signing up for our newsletter!

BECOME A SUPPORTER

Supporting the Festival

There are many ways to support the festival, which is currently volunteer-run and community-driven.

A donation or sponsorship supports the visioning committee and paying artists and deathworkers in our upcoming programs.

If you’d like to make a donation to the festival today, click the link below.

Make a Donation

Learn More about Supporting the Festival

The Philadelphia Death and Arts Festival imagines that any Philadelphian who will die, or loves someone who will die, will have access to a culture of dying that centers our humanity, our care for each other, and our love for the greater world.

We gather people to grapple with death in ways no other platform does

Watch the 20-minute documentary about our inaugural festival below

"There was a lot of vulnerability and a lot of curiosity. I was struck by how excited/enthusiastic people were. I felt like people really wanted to connect and share their experiences with grief and with death."

"To be able to focus on grief, loss and the inevitable, dying so openly was something i did not know i needed, yet did. it cracked me wide open. Thank you."

"This was a FANTASTIC festival and I'm so glad I was able to attend due to your accessible pricing options. Thank you for making this important information available to more people!"

"The diversity of artistic offerings—from performance to visual art to panel discussions—made the weekend feel vibrant and expansive. "

"I know that one day after my parents die, I will write you all and tell you how the show with them was one of the greatest gifts you could have ever given to me.

"[I was excited by] the way people gathered. There was a lot of vulnerability and a lot of curiosity. I was struck by how excited/enthusiastic people were. I felt like people really wanted to connect and share their experiences with grief and with death."

"I love the arts and/but feel uncertainty and confusion and desire to be with other people around death. Putting them together made me able to get past any hangups or hesitation about a festival on death to participate and feel some groundedness in being together."

"The festival itself helped me mold and re-mold my relationship to death. it gave me so many tangible practical facts and learnings that i know i would otherwise be too afraid to seek out to learn on my own."

"Being able to walk around the cemetery, pop into workshops, have 1:1s in the grief corner, made me feel so alive. it made me feel less scared to talk about death."

"What felt exciting: hearing other people's sense-making around death and grieving- seeing it transformed artistically so that I might find my way to my own grief/grieving experience."

"I loved how arts and ritual were used to open up a space for this death-phobic overculture to explore, express, evoke, experiment, learn, celebrate, etc."

"The festival held my wonder and inspired a great chapter of upcoming visual arts works."