https://notdeadyetproject.univer.se/, https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/not-dead-yet

Not Dead Yet?, Poole (2026)

09/09/2026

Not Dead Yet? is taking another important step: we are recruiting two Founding Directors to help establish Not Dead Yet? as a Community Interest Company (CIC).

Becoming a CIC will give the project a proper structure from which to grow, helping us access funding streams and develop partnerships and collaborations with arts, health and community organisations.

I'm looking for two people who believe in what Not Dead Yet? is trying to build and who can bring the skills and experience needed to help turn this slightly unusual idea into something sustainable.

You don't need to have lived experience of cancer, or the arts.

If that sounds like you — or perhaps like somebody you know — you can read the full Founding Director role descriptions and find details of how to get involved follow the links in the comments or email us [email protected]

Community Action Network

08/09/2026

Read all about the Sanctuary 2026 - Lighthouse Residency on our website (link in comments)

05/09/2026

Day 3 — …and that’s a wrap!

🗓️ Months of planning, emailing, organising, crowdfunding, making lists, changing lists and wondering whether everything would come together… and then suddenly, it was over.

💭 Three days of creating, sharing ideas, challenging each other, talking about our lived experiences of cancer and having a lot of fun. There was plenty of laughter, quite a lot of dark humour, and so much learning about ourselves, each other and what can happen when people are given the space to be honest, curious and creative.

🤗 We started as strangers with two things in common: creativity and cancer.
By the end of Friday, bonds had formed, ideas were flowing and nobody seemed quite ready to leave. That feeling was probably the clearest sign that the residency had been a success.

🥱 I am physically and emotionally exhausted, but also incredibly happy and grateful.

🙏🏽 Thank you to Rosie, Jeff and Keleigh-Marie for trusting me to guide this process, and to everyone who took part with such openness, generosity and enthusiasm. You brought far more to the room than I could have hoped for.

🙌🏽 A huge thank you also to Kathy Lett, who joined us for a thoughtful conversation about grief, emotions and the complicated landscape of living with incurable cancer. Your support was so valued.

🙌🏽 And thank you to Alex Szigeti, who documented the residency so beautifully while quietly capturing everything from the background. I cannot wait to see the residency through your eyes.

🗺️ The residency may be over, but Not Dead Yet? is only just beginning.
We now have an exhibition to plan, develop and deliver. The crowdfunding currently stands at £345, which means we can reimburse the artists for their travel expenses, with a little more available towards some of the other costs involved in taking part.

❤️ Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged, shared the campaign, talked about the project or encouraged me along the way. Every bit of support has mattered.

💷 The crowdfunding continues because the exhibition needs funding too. Please keep sharing the campaign and look out for updates about what comes next.

☕️ For now, I am going to put the kettle on, sit down and let myself realise that we actually did it. Three days ago, we walked into a room as strangers. By the end of Friday, we walked out as collaborators.

❤️ And I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

Lighthouse Poole Crowdfunder

Sanctuary 2026 - Lighthouse Residency

01/09/2026

Meet Keleigh-Marie Snelgrove 🎨

We’re delighted to introduce Keleigh-Marie Snelgrove, one of the artists joining us for the *Not Dead Yet?* residency at Lighthouse Poole

Keleigh-Marie is an impressionist painter and artist whose work is strongly connected to place. Inspired by the natural surroundings, geology and history of Purbeck, she often paints landscapes and scenes from places she has visited — holding onto something of the experience through colour and paint.

For Keleigh-Marie, making art has long been somewhere to go when everyday life becomes difficult.

She told us: “Art has always been an escape from the humdrum of everyday life, in particular at times of stress and anguish.”

An incurable cancer diagnosis hasn’t stopped that creative process.

What particularly stayed with us was Keleigh-Marie’s reflection that she hasn’t felt the need to start making work about cancer simply because she is living with it.

“I haven't created something with ‘a message’ about my cancer because it's become part of my life. I have it but it doesn't have me yet.”

And perhaps there is something important in that.

Art made by someone living with incurable cancer does not have to explain cancer. It doesn’t have to carry a message about illness, educate an audience or turn a diagnosis into its subject.

Sometimes continuing to paint the places you love, the landscapes you remember and the things that catch your eye is its own expression of a life that is still being lived.

We’re really looking forward to seeing where Keleigh-Marie’s creative thinking takes her during Not Dead Yet?.

Welcome, Keleigh-Marie. 💛

01/09/2026

Meet Kathy Lett 👋

As we get ready to begin the Not Dead Yet? residency at Lighthouse Poole, I’d like to introduce you to another of the lovely people who will be joining us and supporting the artists taking part.

Kathy is a BACP-accredited counsellor with 16 years’ experience working within the NHS with people affected by cancer. Her work has included supporting both patients and family members through diagnosis, anxiety, trauma, loss and bereavement.

Throughout Not Dead Yet?, we’re creating space for artists to explore some complex experiences through their creative practice. That can sometimes bring unexpected thoughts, memories and emotions to the surface.

Kathy’s role isn’t to turn our creative residency into a therapy session! Rather, she’ll be there as an additional source of emotional support, should anyone feel they need it.

One of the things I really wanted from the beginning was for care and wellbeing to be woven into the way we work together — not added as an afterthought. Having someone with Kathy’s particular understanding of both cancer and the many different forms that grief and loss can take feels very important.

You can find out more about Kathy and her counselling practice here:

https://kathylettcounselling.co.uk/

Thank you, Kathy, for being part of Not Dead Yet? 💛

01/09/2026

🎨 Meet Jeff (he/him) on Instagram

We’re delighted to introduce Jeff, one of the artists taking part in Not Dead Yet?

Jeff is an artist, filmmaker and educator whose creative life has moved between film, theatre, teaching and painting. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Cinematics — although, as Jeff puts it, that “sounds a bit grand”. He thinks of himself more simply as someone who enjoys making things, looking closely, and helping others find ways to express what matters to them.

Painting has become an increasingly important part of his practice. Jeff is interested in places, spaces and atmosphere, and in the complicated emotional lives that can exist within seemingly ordinary scenes.

His background in cinema is never very far away. He thinks about framing, light and narrative — what might have happened just before a painted moment, or what might happen immediately afterwards. Film and theatre have also left him fascinated by character, performance, memory and the stories we construct around ourselves.

More recently, Jeff’s life and work have been interrupted and redirected by a diagnosis of muscle-invasive bladder cancer. He underwent chemotherapy followed by major surgery to remove his bladder and now lives with a urostomy. Treatment may be over, but uncertainty remains.

For Jeff, Not Dead Yet? offers an opportunity to work alongside other artists inhabiting that uncertainty — exchanging ideas and making work while exploring how fear, survival, ageing, absurdity and hope can all coexist.

As he puts it:

“For me, making art remains an act of attention; still here, still curious, and still making (just).”

We’re really looking forward to seeing what Jeff brings to the conversations, collaborations and creative experimentation of Not Dead Yet?

Over the coming days, we’ll be introducing more of the artists taking part in the project as our creative community begins to take shape.

01/09/2026

🎬 Meet Rosie Read (she/her)

We’re delighted to introduce Rosie Read, one of the artists taking part in Not Dead Yet?

✨ Rosie is a documentary filmmaker with an interest in visual art. Her work is drawn to stories about moments of profound change — situations where something shifts, and where the camera can help us notice, understand and hold onto what is happening.

Alongside her creative practice, Rosie works as a social science academic at Bournemouth University.

Rosie was diagnosed with a rare chronic form of leukaemia in 2018. Away from filmmaking and academia, she enjoys walking in Dorset and the New Forest.

We’re really looking forward to seeing what Rosie brings to the conversations, collaborations and creative experimentation of Not Dead Yet?.

Today we’ll be introducing more of the artists taking part in the project — so stay with us as the community begins to take shape.

Lighthouse Poole Sanctuary 2026 - Lighthouse Residency

01/09/2026

📷 Meet Alex Szigeti

There are parts of a creative residency you can plan: the sessions, the materials, the conversations.

And then there are all the moments in between.

Someone leaning over a sketchbook. A conversation that suddenly sparks an idea. Hands making something. A burst of laughter. A quiet pause while someone thinks.

Those moments are part of the story too.

I’m really pleased that Alex Szigeti will be joining us as the photographer documenting the Not Dead Yet? residency at Lighthouse Poole.

Alex describes herself as a curious storyteller, and her photography is rooted in authentic, natural moments and in noticing the beauty that can so easily be missed in ordinary life. Her route into photography has been wonderfully varied too—from training as a doula, to working as a fashion stylist, to eventually finding herself behind a camera.

Across our three residency days, Alex will be with us intermittently, documenting not simply what we make, but how we make it: the conversations, experimentation, collaboration, connection and those small unplanned moments that become part of a creative process.

That matters to me.

I don’t want the visual story of Not Dead Yet? to define anybody through illness. I want it to show artists being artists—making, thinking, laughing, questioning, experimenting and creating together. That has been part of the project’s approach to photography from the beginning.

And, importantly, photography throughout the residency will always be guided by each participant’s consent.

Alex, I’m very glad you’re part of this. ❤️

You can discover more of Alex’s work here: https://www.alexandraszigeti.com/

28/08/2026

£270 and counting… Not Dead Yet? is about to begin

Yesterday morning, the Not Dead Yet? crowdfunding total stood at £245.

I posted a little update to say thank you, to share where we were, and to remind people that support doesn’t always have to mean donating. Sharing a post, leaving a comment, telling someone about the project — all of those things help.

And then more pledges came in.

Today, the total stands at £270.

That’s another £25 since yesterday’s update, and another lovely reminder that every time somebody talks about Not Dead Yet?, the circle around this project gets a little wider.

From an idea to a room full of artists

There’s something else that has changed this week too.

For months, Not Dead Yet? has existed in applications, emails, funding bids, spreadsheets, conversations, social media posts and a frankly impressive number of lists.

Now we’re about to walk into a room together and actually begin.

Last night I held our first video call with the successful applicants who will be taking part in the residency. It was the first opportunity for everyone to meet before we gather in person at Lighthouse Poole on Wednesday 2 September.

And I am ridiculously excited.

Over the next few days, I’ll begin introducing the participating artists and creatives and sharing a little about who they are, their creative practices and what has brought them to Not Dead Yet?

Then, on Wednesday, the making begins.

Why the crowdfunding continues

The crowdfunding campaign has now been extended for another four weeks.

Although our three residency days at Lighthouse Poole take place on 2, 3 and 4 September, the work — and the costs — don’t suddenly stop when we leave the building on Friday afternoon.

The residency is a beginning.

The conversations, ideas, relationships and creative work that emerge during those three days will inform what happens next as we begin developing the project beyond the residency.

That means there will continue to be costs associated with supporting the artists, developing the work and taking Not Dead Yet? into its next stage.

So yes, I’m afraid I’m going to continue sounding a little like a broken record for a while longer. 😁

If you can donate, wonderful.

If you can’t, you can still make a genuine difference.

Share the crowdfunding campaign (link in comments).
Comment on our posts.
Tell somebody about the project.
Follow what we’re doing.
Come along when there is something to see.

And when you share something, add a few words of your own about why you’re sharing it. That personal recommendation helps somebody else understand why this project might be worth their attention too.

£270 and counting…

Every donation represents somebody choosing to believe that this project is worth helping into existence.

Every share introduces us to somebody new.

Every conversation helps build the community I hoped Not Dead Yet? could become.

And now, after months of planning:

£270 has been raised.

The artists have met.

The residency is days away.

Not Dead Yet? isn’t just an idea anymore.

We’re about to begin.

Thank you for being part of it.

Marbellys

Crowdfunder

27/08/2026

📣 £245 — and we’re nearly there!

Another little Not Dead Yet? update… and our crowdfunding total now stands at £245! 🎉

🙏🏽 Thank you so much to everyone who has donated, shared the campaign, talked about the project, or helped it find its way into somebody else’s feed or inbox. Every bit of support has helped us get this far.

😁 And now things are beginning to feel very real.

📹 Tonight I’m holding our first video call with the successful applicants, bringing everyone together for the first time ahead of the residency.

Then, as we get closer to Wednesday 2 September and our first day at Lighthouse Poole I’ll start introducing you to the artists and creatives taking part. I am so excited for you to meet them and to begin sharing more of what we’re creating together.

🗓️ The Crowdfunder campaign has also been extended for another four weeks. Although the residency itself begins next week, the costs don’t stop when those three days finish. There will be work to do afterwards as the ideas and collaborations that emerge from the residency begin to develop, and we move towards the next stage of Not Dead Yet?

So, we’re not done with the fundraising just yet!

If you’ve already supported us: thank you. You’re making it possible for artists to have their travel expenses covered 💛

If you haven’t donated but would still like to help, sharing the campaign and telling people why you’re sharing it really does make a difference. [Link in bio 🔗]

£245 raised.
Artists about to meet.
Six days until we walk into the room together.

Not Dead Yet? is no longer just an idea.

We’re about to begin.

Not Dead Yet?

09/09/2026

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