I’m on the train to Waterloo for a workshop at Crosby Library; the sun is shining, the clocks have just gone forward, and it seems like a strangely hopeful sort of day to be talking about grief.
But that’s exactly the point of projects like At The Library’s collaborative arts programme Loved and Lost; there’s no rulebook or right time to talk about the myriad ways grief and loss can touch our lives, so we must create space to have and hold these conversations with care.
Grief can affect us emotionally, physically and put a strain on our mental health. According to Mind [1], mental health services in the UK are struggling with demand and the cost of poor mental health to the NHS in England alone is calculated at £300 billion per year. As health services struggle to cope with demand, artists, arts organisations and community hubs have taken on this necessary role of support. For libraries, improving Health and Wellbeing is part of four Universal Library Offers that drive a responsive service across the country.
At the Library is a programme of artist-led workshops, projects, commissions and happenings taking place in community libraries across Sefton, Merseyside, with activity in Bootle and Netherton, as well as Crosby. Their approach is intentionally slow; listening to and learning from their community, to create a programme that feels meaningful, connected and specific to each site. “Each library has a different personality,” Head of Audiences Jessie Jones tells me. “Bootle is like everyone’s living room; you see the same people popping in every day”, giving it a strong sense of community and clear role to play locally, “beyond the book”, as Sefton Libraries’ tagline suggests.
It’s interesting to learn from Jessie that there is a visible pattern of library users returning following a big life change, driven by a desire for company and connection, as well as to borrow books, or to use the space to access the internet or study. They tend to be new parents, the newly retired, those who have recently moved house, sanctuary seeking communities, and anyone who has experienced a loss: be that a person, a job, or something else.
With this knowledge in hand, and following a series of conversations amongst the team, At The Library agreed that the exploration of collective grief was a necessary direction for the programme in Crosby. The past few years have been hard on everyone; we’ve survived a global pandemic, find ourselves living through political and environmental polycrises, and the scale and severity of poor mental health across communities is spiralling. Meanwhile on a hyper local level, Sefton’s seaside town of Southport was united in grief following a tragedy last summer [2]- people need to talk.
And so Loved and Lost begins a programme of work unfolding over the next three years: “a season of projects exploring grief, how we talk about it and how to live well with it”. The programme is created in collaboration with artist and theatre maker Jenny Gaskell, whose work involves hosting, listening, writing, gathering people together and thinking about grief. Jenny and I agree that grief is a topic coming up again and again in galleries and arts spaces, perhaps as we try to implement care in the context of expectations to deliver more than simply ‘culture’ as well as competitive funding and professional burn out. It’s of particular interest to Jenny, whose work I know to be intimate, tender, often funny and giving reverence to everyday interactions. She’s a qualified funeral celebrant, delivers work informed by grief at hospices in Oldham, and her project The Sustainable Travel Agency deals with ecological grief, so Loved and Lost feels like a natural fit.
Last year, Crosby Library re-commissioned Jenny’s project People and Other Living and Dead Things and the Matter in Between, allowing her to scale it from an idea/event on a shoestring to an installation with participatory art work. Visitors were invited to write a thank you card to something or someone they have loved and lost and place it in the installation. Thank yous are written for “the big stuff and little stuff and stuff that goes unnoticed”; they could be to people, pets, strangers, exes, favourite jumpers, past places, health and challenges overcome. The cards were created by Crosby Library’s community back in May 2024, using recycled paper from the library, which they pulped and turned into beautiful, homemade paper, dotted with marigold seeds.
I join Jenny, Lead Producer Debbie Chan and the library team for a workshop in March 2025 which continues the life cycle of the thank you cards. Part of a group of strangers, together we are here to read and pay respects to over 100 of the thank you cards written by other library users, before planting them in handmade newspaper pots, and eventually into the flower beds around the library site.
As we sit around three tables, getting to know each other, the anticipated awkwardness of meeting new people quickly dissipates, and walls come down. We each listen intently to thank you letters to lost grandparents, apologies to long lost friends, and odes to better health. Some were lighthearted and fun (thanks to VAR for a winning football scoresheet), some deeply personal, almost voyeuristic to read. One card bore a request to be planted at Bootle Library, which was discussed and honored. Another said simply “I’m struggling to find the words”.
Discussion draws to a natural close and we step out into the sunshine. I think about how today feels like creating a new ritual for grieving (coincidentally, ritual is the theme of the next phase of the project) as we plant the marigold cards in the library flower beds. There’s something so simple and beautiful about the life cycle of this project: grief becoming new life, spring overcoming pain and loss as flowers bloom. Marigolds are known to be hardy flowers but there’s also something poignant in this transferral of custodianship of grief from the anonymous authors of the thank yous, to the library’s gardening group, cultivating joy from the soil.
The people planting together today include some familiar faces from local arts projects, members of the library’s gardening group, as well as people who’ve come to the project through their own experiences of grief, perhaps finding a way in through one of the artist-led Grief Gatherings (with Darcie Chazen and Josh Coates amongst others), which aim to support individuals through their grief journey. These Gatherings, (small group conversations about grief, open to anyone, whether or not they’ve experienced grief) are inspired by Fevered Sleep’s, This Grief Thing and take place all over the country, offering a chance to come together to talk, learn and think about grief, something a lot of us find almost impossible to talk about. Debbie tells me that twelve staff and artists across four Sefton libraries have been trained to deliver sessions, creating space to ensure people feel “validated and heard”, and this feels like an inspirational legacy for this project.
“Libraries are one of the last civic spaces” Jenny muses. “There’s no agenda, you don’t have to spend money. It’s a place to learn and to connect”. In recent years though, the amount of money received by local councils from the government has reduced significantly, while the demand for services – particularly adult social care, school transport and homelessness – has increased. This has left libraries elsewhere in the country particularly vulnerable to cuts. Since 2016, there has been a net loss of 183 static libraries in the UK that came under councils’ statutory services (BBC Shared Data Unit) [3]. Even as these necessary community hubs are dwindling, communities continue to need safety and solace. Thankfully Sefton’s libraries are heralded as vital infrastructure and recognised for their important place in the community.
As we head back inside, past a chorus of ukuleles and library staff setting up an exhibition of work by the site’s Stitch Club, I take a moment to consider the enormity of the library’s remit, its impact locally, and how staff still find moments to cultivate joy amongst the pressure. Being part of this ancient, almost ritualistic task of planting new life felt good; what Jenny and Debbie have created in the space today feels really special, vulnerable and organic. Absorbed and inspired by the anonymous notes, our hands busy making the origami newspaper plant pots, people around my table have shared their stories gladly and authentically, and will leave the library feeling a little lighter, I’d hope.
The workshop wraps up, and the floor is open for everyone to suggest other ways we might explore grief over the coming months. Someone suggests ‘ambivalent grief’: how we might navigate losing someone we didn’t have a positive relationship with, and the impact that might have, which feels like another important angle for the collective conversation. Jenny tells me about her motivation: “there’s a lot of grief in the world and I wanted to hold that”, and we chat about the ever-changing role of art and artists in the liminal space between culture and care, when public services are overloaded. Artists working in a socially-engaged way like Jenny and orgs like At The Library are at the forefront of pioneering this response, using culture resources to facilitate grassroots movements of togetherness, network and support in collaboration with the communities they cultivate. As budgets tighten and facilities become stretched, I’m grateful that projects like this one exist. It’s important to note that whilst we cannot expect the arts to tackle the burden of gaps in public services, improving Health and Wellbeing is part of Crosby Library’s remit, and together with At The Library is part of a localised and holistic network of care.
What’s next?
For those living locally, there’s plenty of ways to get involved and access parts of the Loved and Lost programme, including the Loved and Lost Shared Reading Group at Formby Library is a space to explore poetry and prose together and help make sense of the thoughts and feelings around bereavement and grief.
Meanwhile, for Dying Matters Week, there is a Grief Gathering at Formby Library on Tuesday 6th May, and an afternoon of creativity, connection and cultural exploration, featuring crafts, talks and a performance at Crosby Library on Thursday 8th May, exploring how different diasporic communities honour their loved ones: The Culture of Dying Matters.
There’s also a piece exploring the rituals we perform to honour the dead and the different multicultural traditions we use to honour them that will be displayed as part of Liverpool Biennial at FACT, online and at Crosby Library.
At The Library is a partnership between Rule Of Threes Arts and Sefton Libraries
Sinéad Nunes writer based in Liverpool
This review is supported by At The Library
Links:
[1] Mind (2024). The Big Mental Health Report 2024 (Accessed: 7 May 2025)
[2] Halliday, J. (2024). ‘Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana jailed for 52 years for murder of three girls’, The Guardian, 18 June. Available at: https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/13337822.rainbow-support-for-york-pride/ (Accessed: 7 May 2025).
[3] Hattenstone, A., Lynch, P. and Tomas, P. (2024). ‘Public libraries in ‘crisis’ as councils cut services’, BBC,3 September. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9lexplel5o (Accessed: 7 May 2025)
Published 06.05.2025 by Natalie Hughes in Reviews
1,933 words