My mother Ania Bilon was diagnosed with a type of very aggressive brain cancer on the 10th of June 2022, given a prognosis of two months to live and died on the 18th of October 2022 at home by her family by her side.​​

 

Out of the blue and into the blue.

​​

Within a month of Ania's diagnosis she had lost the ability to speak and move the right part of her body. Ania couldnt say the words she wanted to say. Within three weeks Ania needed to use a wheelchair and two people to help her move and smoke a cigarette or eat a brownie or make a phone call. She lost most of her speech, but she could still communicate through some words or phrases, one of them is 

​

Where is my babe?

 

Home gigs, dinner parties, day trips to exhibitions and car boot sales. Ania didn't like the idea of funerals and didn’t like the idea of us having a party without her. We went on a boat trip on Little Venice to celebrate her rite of passage. 

 

Four days before Ania's death, she had the impulse to see Rothko’s work at the Tate Modern, but when we got there she said

 

No more desire

 

​Ania died at home on the 18th of October 2022 in London, Maida Vale.

​

We held her hand and followed her last breath.

 

I wanted to keep Ania's body at home.I made a mould of her hand.

​

This is what inspired The Art of Dying Project.​
 

Thank you to all the carers and nurses who helped me day and night to look after my mum: Soula, Dina, Sonia, Brigitte, Yvette, Cristiana, Hamda, Hinda, Ifra, Fortun, Hawa, Fahida, Uber and Sophia. Thank you for the support of Cancer MacMillian and St Johns Hospice for palliative care at home support.  

​​​

Many pictures were taken by Ania herself documenting the last few months of Ania's life

​​​