The art of expressive objects supporting agency in palliative care

I have been developing a model for how to use animated objects when meeting a palliative care patient and I have noticed that during these animated moments in the hospice, performing objects have represented different sites of humanity. At their best, these moments have created a performance from the patient’s story that has become shared. Moments of animation in the hospice are meetings between me and a person who is in palliative care. I have facilitated our meeting and brought a suitcase full of everyday objects with me. A patient is given a story and then cast in their own story with objects they have chosen. Meetings with patients in palliative care made me think about patients moral agency. A moral agent is a being who consciously puts moral activities into practice. Expressive objects telling stories for a patient is one place where moral agency survives in the hospice setting and where a palliative care patient can act for a while as a member of a moral community. In this article, I share my model of expressive objects related to my practice.