Kit Green’s What Will Survive Of Us…. 

Produced by Entelechy Arts and supported by National Heritage Lottery Fund 

Human beings have always wanted to be remembered after death.  The ancients were total bosses at it.  The Victorians spent a lot of time and money making it happen.  It’s become regarded as a bit big-headed in our culture.  But the pandemic has brought this desire into sharper focus. Could the digital realm, combined with the artistic impulse, have the answer?   

Kit Green’s What Will Survive Of Us…. sets an intention to create a new digital framework.  A democratic, agenda-less holding form with one desire; to allow everybody to create a memory bequest.  How would they like to be remembered after their death?  Like a conventional will, or a living will, it can be created by any person of any age.  It’s a creative, hopeful process, that can be constantly revised if the person wants to do that.  Or simply made and left for the day it is needed.   

This digital structure isn’t owned by a giant tech company – it belongs to the people.  It allows for up to 6 items to be saved.  These can be images, sound recordings, video or anything that can be uploaded.  An image can be a hastily snapped selfie or a painting that has taken years.  Audio can be a recording of speech or a song, created or curated.  Each item has the possibility to have a written context alongside it. 

Flexibility is key to every part of this project; if people want to make theirs in a group with a Legacy Party, or with the help of a creative artist, or alone, or with someone they love – whatever feels right.  The  British Library (where Kit was their first ever Artist in Residence), will co-host the project.  It will never be commercial.  The digital framework celebrates its technical simplicity.  There are many tools that can be used to create the items; from photography, audio, video editing software, and guides on how to do that will be included, but the site will never impose creative decisions on the content.  It says “I exist. One day I won’t exist, but I know that I will be mourned.  In a small way, the world will be better because I existed.  You might remember me differently, but this is how I think I matter”.   

What Will Survive of Us will develop throughout 2024 

Our ambition is to create a national digital heritage platform, used by thousands of people, that transcends language, culture, and identity, to unite society, a simple and powerful tool to help anyone leave their own creative legacy.  

Through a series of workshops and public sharings, people will access these conversations from a place of joy, reflection, individual empowerment, and creativity. The participants will be representative of communities who are underrepresented voices in the culture and heritage sectors and will offer an important and diverse range of perspectives. 

Kit Green is an Olivier-Award-winning non-binary artist working across theatre, entertainment, and social care.  Their piece The Home was a 48-hour experiential show and will soon be released as a game, in collaboration with the Japan Foundation, exploring the politics and lived experience of residential care in both the UK and Japan through digital entertainment.  www.kitgreen.net 

“Part Politician, part shaman, part sociologist, part healer, but you’ll happily only focus on the fact that they’re an entertainer” The Guardian 

Read the report, written by project evaluator Millie van der Byl Williams, here.

To read about the project in its past, R&D phase, click here.