However do you know what happens to each one of those people after a cancer diagnosis?

There is still a lingering historical association with cancer as a death sentence, as well as misconceptions about how advanced treatment options truly are and their potential curative outcomes.

Popular perception is that when someone gets cancer they either get treated, "fight a brave battle", and are cured, or they get treated, eventually "lose their battle" and die.

This very binary way of thinking about cancer hides a reality which is rarely talked about and poorly documented.

People living with an incurable cancer diagnosis are managing complex health needs, often supported by their loved ones and requiring multidisciplinary management of their cancer.

They are also living with, and managing, the long-term side effects of multiple interventions aimed at delaying disease progression, reducing burden, and prolonging life.

And at the same time, as all human beings do, wishing to maintain their independence, reclaim agency over their bodies, and reframe their experiences as relevant.

Not Dead Yet? responds to this gap by creating an artist-led space for people with lived experience of incurable cancer, and those who care or have cared for loved ones, to explore the realities of continuing to live, make, relate and imagine beyond the dominant narratives of cure or end-of-life.

I am leading the project and setting the focus on exploring the realities of living with incurable cancer, not through the lens of dying but through the complexity of continuing to live.

The vision is to challenge simplified narratives around cancer by creating honest, emotionally nuanced work about identity, love, rage, humour, grief, intimacy, memory, endurance, creativity, bureaucracy, embodiment, and survival.

It centres lived experience and asks: What does it mean to keep living when life has fundamentally changed?

By rejecting narratives that reduce people to diagnoses, tragedies, or inspirational symbols, we centre lived experience in all its complexity — messy, embodied, unfinished, and deeply human.

The primary audience includes people living with incurable cancer, carers and loved ones, artists and creatives interested in illness narratives and socially engaged practice, healthcare professionals seeking more human-centred perspectives, and general audiences willing to engage with difficult subjects through emotionally accessible art.

Avoiding sentimentality, inspirational clichés, trauma voyeurism, and medicalisation.

Instead, through conversations and collaboration, it aims to tackle issues such as survivor's guilt, intimacy, identity beyond prognosis in a way that is honest, warm, raw, intelligent, darkly funny at times, and tender without becoming fragile.

The residency welcomes multidisciplinary practice including, but not limited to, textiles, writing, spoken word, sound, film, photography, sculpture, painting, installation, digital practice, performance and socially engaged work (this is not an exhaustive list).

We want to engage with up to 10 artists / creatives, regardless of discipline or experience, and who are:

- Over 18 years of age at the time of applying

- Living with an incurable cancer diagnosis, OR who have cared for / are caring for someone living with incurable cancer AND

- Living, working, OR caring for someone living or working within the geographical area covered by postcodes BH, DT, and SP for Shaftesbury and Gillingham

The project is currently seeking individuals who might be interested in coming on board as non-executive directors (governance and finance) as the Project Lead aims to form a CIC which will increase the likelihood of successful funding bids.

If you have read this far, thank you for your time and thank you for your interest in this project.

Please, would you share this article with your networks?

Do you have, or do you know someone who has, the skills needed to come on board and drive this vision together to success?

Please get in touch.

Until next time,