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Coming to an end – An interactive museum experience

Thursday, 06 November 2025 to Saturday, 15 November 2025, 10am - 5pm

Take part in a self-guided museum trail, hosted at the Ashmolean Museum, exploring issues of death, dying and end-of-life care. Adapted from an innovative, award-winning trail forming part of the Oxford medical curriculum, this activity is co-created by a multidisciplinary team spanning the Humanities and Medical Sciences Divisions and including the perspectives of expert patient tutors.

Unknown Artist, The Death of the Buddha, or Mahaparinirvana, grey schist, c.200 CE © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Unknown artist, The Death of the Buddha, or Mahaparinirvana, grey schist, c200 CE

Coming to an end – An interactive museum experience reflecting on end-of-life care. This is an open panel-led public conversation involving academics, museum curators, and expert patient tutors (people living with chronic neurological diseases who co-deliver teaching sessions for the Medical School) as well as a self-guided museum trail at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford that the public will be invited to take before or after the panel discussion. It will involve experts from TORCH Medical Humanities Hub, the ANTITHESES Platform and the Uehiro Oxford Institute at Oxford in dialogue with the public.

 Location: Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH

Accessibility information: Ashmolean Museum access page

Self-guided museum trail

The self-guided trail can be done between museum hours at your own convenience. 

Drop in event- No booking required

Thursday 6–Saturday 15 November, 10:00 –17:00

Panel discussion event

The panel-led public discussion event will be held on Friday 14 November from 13:00–14:00. 

Introduction by Dr Jim Harris, Teaching Curator, Ashmolean Museum

Chaired by Professor Dominic Wilkinson, Deputy Director Uehiro Oxford Institute and Director of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford 

Speakers

Dr Victoria Bradley, Consultant in and the Clinical Lead for Palliative Medicine at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Palliative Medicine.

Dr Halina Suwalowska, Social Scientist and Researcher in Global Health Bioethics at the Ethox Centre

Eleanor Kerfoot, Historian and DPhil candidate at Balliol College

 

Booking is required to attend the panel discussion.

Book your tickets via Eventbrite 

 

This event is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place from 6 - 15 November 2025. The festival is led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see the Being Human Festival page.