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DEAD GOOD SISTERS 💀 Katy & Lindsey Vigurs

@deadgoodlegacies

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Stewarding the emergence of renewed death cultures through creativity, community & ecology.
Projects • Resources • Art • Research
NE / MACC / UK

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Hello there. We're Katy (KV) and Lindsey (LV).

We're sisters, artists, activists, educators and community practitioners. We're based in the UK.

And together we are DEAD GOOD.

A few years ago, we started exploring what happens when people are given more opportunities to engage with mortality through creativity, conversation, imagination and participation.

Since then, we've spent thousands of hours exploring funerals, grief, legacy, remembrance and end-of-life planning alongside communities across the UK.

What we've learned is that conversations about death often reveal what matters most in life. These conversations uncover stories, relationships, values, hopes, fears, responsibilities and possibilities.

They invite us to think about how we care for one another, how we belong to nature, and what we leave behind when we die.

At DEAD GOOD, we believe these conversations belong to everyone.

We create spaces where people can explore mortality together through workshops, gatherings, projects, resources and creative experiences.

Sometimes we're helping people design meaningful funerals. Sometimes we're making zines about advance care planning. Sometimes we're talking about ecological approaches to death and dying. Sometimes we're stitching moths, building legacies, sharing stories or imagining futures.

Underneath it all is the same idea.

Death is one of the places where human beings discover that they are part of something larger than themselves.

At DEAD GOOD, we see death as part of a much bigger story.

A story about relationships.

Between people and places.
Between generations.
Between memories and imaginaries.
Between loss and renewal.
Between humans and the more-than-human world.

We're happy to see you here :)

Check out the links in our bio, pals. Something for everyone in there!

And do share our work with a friend or group who might like the cut of our jib.

(just had to look up what a jib is. It's a sailing flag)

Love you bye

Photography by @sarahjohnsonphotography_ by @deadgoodlegacies

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4 months ago

At DEAD GOOD, we talk a lot about rewilding deathcare.

People often assume we're just talking about eco-friendly funerals.

Sometimes we are.

But we're also interested in something much bigger.

Rewilding deathcare is about relationships. Relationships with the people we love. Relationships with our communities. Relationships with the living world.

It's about nurturing more opportunities to participate rather than simply consume.

It might look like a home vigil. A funeral planning party. A personal pilgrimage. A community remembrance project. A natural burial. A legacy treasure hunt. A shared memorial space. And more...

For us, rewilding deathcare is about imagining futures where deathcare helps strengthen connections between people, places, the wider web of life, and future generations.

Nurturing a more regenerative culture around death.

There are lots of us out there already doing this work!

Tag a person or organisation whose practice is already aligned with a rewilding deathcare perspective.

Let's rewild deathcare together.

Loveyoubye

(rewilding deathcare, regenerative funerals, deathcare, natural burial, community deathcare, green goodbye)

Photography by @sarahjohnsonphotography_

Cameos by @periwinkle.barn
@alexcolliscelebrant @dying2help @jillvjonescelebrant @heathercelebrant by @deadgoodlegacies

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4 months ago

Many of the hardest decisions people make take place after a death happens, during a period of shock and exhaustion. It can be a wild kind of chaos.

What if some of those conversations happened earlier?

What if we talked more openly about our end-of-life wishes?

What if we shared our stories while we were alive?

What if we planned with the people we love instead of leaving them adrift?

At DEAD GOOD, we believe preparing for death can be a creative, meaningful and even joyful act.

Because making space for mortality often helps us notice what matters most right now.

A funeral plan can become a family conversation.

A legacy project can become a living gift.

A detailed death file can become an act of care.

Death is inevitable. Fear and panic isn't.

Preparation is an opportunity.

What conversation have you been meaning to start?

Love you bye

(Get Mortal, Death Planning, Legacy Making, Advance Care Planning, Funeral Planning, Death Care, Community Care) by @deadgoodlegacies

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4 months ago

WE NEED YOU. YES YOU, PAL.

Has something you’ve seen here found its way into your life/mind/imagination?

Perhaps you’ve had a conversation about death that you’d been putting off. Discovered a funeral choice you didn’t know existed. Made something in memory of someone. Or sent one of our posts to somebody with the words: “This is what I want.”

We see what gets liked and shared. What we can’t always see is what happens next.

And that’s the bit we’d love your help with.

We’ve made a very short survey to find out whether our work is having any impact.

Could you give us three minutes of your time to tell us?

You don’t need to have bought anything or been to a workshop. If you’ve encountered our work through our social media posts, we’d love to hear from you. Small impacts count. Honest feedback does too.

Your answers will help us understand what’s making a difference, shape what we do next and show potential project commissioners why this work matters.

Fill in our short survey through the link in our bio.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

THANK YOU.

Loveyoubye by @deadgoodlegacies

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3 hours ago

Last night we began a new creative journey with a brilliant group of young adults exploring how we might weave our own experiences of loss and remembrance with the bigger story of nature and wildlife disappearing from Britain's landscapes.

Our starting point? SHRINES.

We explored how different cultures and communities create meaningful spaces and objects to honour, remember and maintain connections with those who have died, and how shrines can hold stories, memories, love and longing.

Then we got curious about what makes a shrine a shrine.

The young people examined examples, annotated them, shared their observations and began imagining possibilities of their own.

Tiny doors that open to reveal hidden things. Matchboxes transformed into miniature worlds. Beads, fabric scraps, seeds, shells and found objects. Secret compartments, symbols, colours and personal treasures.

We talked about how ordinary materials can become extraordinary when we give them meaning. And how we might make things that honour the natural world without causing further harm to it.

Over the coming sessions, these ideas will grow into a collection of handmade shrines, eventually becoming a public exhibition in 2027.

We're interested in what happens when we bring personal and ecological grief into conversation. When we make space for what we've lost ourselves, as well as for the lives, species and relationships disappearing around us.

More on this soon.

LOVEYOUBYE by @deadgoodlegacies

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a day ago

THE MIDNIGHT MOTH HAS GONE DIGITAL!

We've heard from lots of enthusiastic people around the world who'd love a copy of The Midnight Moth but have been put off by the wild international shipping costs.

So we've found another way for the Moth to spread its little wings.

Our independently published, 50-page illustrated picture book is now available as an instant DIGITAL DOWNLOAD!

Written and illustrated by Lindsey Vigurs, The Midnight Moth invites children (and their grown-ups) to explore some of life's biggest questions through storytelling, imagination and making.

We strongly believe children deserve more stories in which death is part of life. And more opportunities to imagine what saying goodbye might look like.

Our hardback first edition is still very much available for those who love a physical book. But now The Midnight Moth has another way of reaching you, wherever in the world you happen to be.

The Midnight Moth digital edition is available now. Link in bio.

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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2 days ago

OUR LIVES LEAVE TRACES IN PLACES.

Some places hold entire chapters of our lives. Stories about who we were, who we loved, where we belonged and what mattered to us. And sometimes, those places no longer exist.

Recently, I made a list of seven places that have been particularly important in my life. Every single one was a tree!

The cherry plum in my grandparents' garden. The enormous weeping willow at the bottom of our childhood garden. The cedar tree outside our parents' house. The ancient oak at the top of Trentham Wood.

Four of those seven places are now marked by absence. The trees are gone, but the stories and relationships connected to them remain vivid in my memory.

It got me thinking about how much of our lives is held in ordinary places. And how easily those stories might disappear if we don't find ways to tell them.

At DEAD GOOD, we're interested in legacy as something we can explore, make and share while we're still alive.

One of the ways we do this is through zine-making. Taking a single sheet of paper, folding it into a tiny book and filling it with fragments and traces of our lives.

A hand-drawn map. A remembered smell. A photograph. A conversation. A place that changed us. A story worth sharing.

No artistic talent required. Just a willingness to remember, imagine and make.

Sometimes, it's the smallest, most ordinary details that tell us the most about a life.

Fancy having a go?

Start by writing down seven places or spaces that have been important in your life. They might be places you still visit, places you can never return to, or places that have changed beyond recognition.

Think about the people, relationships and stories connected to each one.

What would you want someone else to know about them?

COME AND MAKE WITH US.

Our next online Creative Approaches to Grief & Legacy workshop takes place on Thursday 12 November, and we have just SIX PLACES LEFT!

We'll be exploring memory, place, grief and personal legacy through creative zine-making.

It's a playful and hands-on opportunity to make something meaningful.

Booking via the link in our bio.

LOVE YOU BYE by @deadgoodlegacies

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4 days ago

What if children didn't have to encounter death and funerals for the first time when someone or something they know and love dies?

What if they could explore these things beforehand? Through stories, imagination, play and making?

We'd love to know: have you ever seen a child bring their own ideas to a funeral, memorial or goodbye ceremony?

We believe children have a place in deathcare, as people with their own questions, ideas, feelings and ways of making meaning.

That's one of the reasons Lindsey made The Midnight Moth.

It's a lyrical story about a moth who dies, and two young characters who must find their own way to honour and remember their friend.

It's also an invitation.

The final pages encourage children and their grown-ups to imagine and create a ceremony for the Midnight Moth themselves.

Rituals aren't just things for adults to organise. They're things we can make together and when children are given opportunities to participate, they discover that saying goodbye isn't only about sadness. It can also involve creativity, tenderness, imagination, care and love.

We call this FAMILIARITY BEFORE FAREWELL.

Our hope is that children who have opportunities to explore death through stories and making might feel a little more familiar with these experiences when they encounter them in real life.

Our independently published, 50-page hardback is available now, alongside free downloadable activities.

We have around 100 first-edition copies remaining.

Find The Midnight Moth on our website. Link in bio.

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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5 days ago

We brought Dad's willow coffin home while he was still very much alive.

A month before he died, we carried his coffin into his living room and sat it in front of him. It looked like a beautiful coffee table.

He'd asked for a willow coffin. Lindsey and I had measured him a few weeks before for his coffin dimensions in that same room. Then we helped weave it, working alongside the wonderful Rachel of Wheatcroft Willow in her studio, using willow grown locally.

When we brought it home, Dad spent time sitting with it.

He ran his hands over the willow. Admired the weaving. Took in its shape and craftsmanship.

He described it as a thing of beauty.

And he told us something that has stayed with us.

It made death feel less alien.

Conventionally, we often encounter the coffin for the first time at the funeral with little opportunity to explore, ask questions or become familiar with what we're seeing.

But Dad got to know his coffin while he was alive. And so did we.

To us it became an object we had made, touched, carried, admired and talked about together. It wasn't something strange or frightening that suddenly appeared at the end.

This experience has profoundly shaped how we think about deathcare at DEAD GOOD.

We believe there is enormous value in becoming familiar with the practical, physical and material realities of death before we're confronted by them.

To make room for curiosity, participation, care and choice.

We call this FAMILIARITY BEFORE FAREWELL.

We wonder what might become possible if more of us had opportunities to encounter deathcare while we're all still very much alive.

The coffin in the pictures was made by our friend Abi of Woven Farewell. We commissioned it to be part of DEAD GOOD's library of ecological coffins.

You can book to weave a coffin with Woven Farewell. They have studios in Sheffield and the South West of England.

Photo credit: Sarah Johnson Photography

Cameos: Debs of Periwinkle Barn and Sarah of Strike Collective

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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6 days ago

We're passionate about talking about natural burial because it opens up much bigger questions about how we care for our dead, what happens to our bodies, our relationship with the living world, and who deathcare belongs to.

A natural burial doesn't try to hold the body apart from nature indefinitely. The body is allowed (encouraged even) to change, break down, decay and return its elements to the living earth.

Creating more regenerative death cultures isn't only about making funerals greener. It's about changing our relationship with death itself. Making it less hidden and making more room for participation, ecological responsibility, imagination, community and care.

This is why we choose to advocate for natural burial because it's one very tangible place where we can all begin to imagine what rewilding deathcare can look and feel like.

All images in this post taken at Seven Penny Meadow, a natural burial ground in the North East of England.

Photo credit: Sarah Johnson Photography

Excellent cameos by the Canny Death Collective.

And as always, kudos and thanks to AJ Hawkins (enter the parlour) for inspiring our IT'S OKAY TO DECAY art work. Check out AJ's art, merch and impeccable approach to deathwork!

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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7 days ago

Familiarity before farewell is one of our DEAD GOOD mottos.

We regularly support families to find ways to soften the edges of a natural burial.

For many, visiting the spot before the grave is dug is important. Settling somehow.

For some, being involved in preparing the grave is valuable. Whether that's digging earth, decorating with foraged materials or filling the earth in after the lowering of the coffin or shroud.

Purposeful action can be good for grief.

How might we become more familiar with green graves and natural burials before death occurs?

Have you visited the natural burial sites nearest to you?

What are they like?

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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8 days ago

The Midnight Moth is ultimately a picture book about death, but it intentionally gives young readers and their grown-ups somewhere to go with it.

At the end of the book, Moona and Luno feel sad and lost when the Midnight Moth dies. Then, the readers step in to help the young creatures do something with their grief. They guide and role model how to gather, remember and make. They show Moona and Luno how to create an imaginative goodbye.

We LOVE seeing what happens after The Midnight Moth is read in homes, classrooms, libraries and community spaces: drawings, things made, unique memorials created, questions asked. Children can be trusted with death. They know what to do if we give them space to explore and play.

The most important part of this book is what happens after the last page.

THE MIDNIGHT MOTH

Written and illustrated by Lindsey Vigurs.

Independently published by our very own Little Rotter Publishing imprint.

Made for talking, making and doing death literacy differently.

Link in bio. Just 150 first edition copies left now.

International shipping available.

Love you bye by @deadgoodlegacies

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