A Place to Die
awarded by World Press Photo & CPOY
This self-initiated project is a about a unique house where terminally ill people come to take prescribed life-ending medication under the care of death doulas.
World Press Photo Exhibition 2025
Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Spain
This story takes place at a house unlike any other in the United States. There are no residents and guests are accompanied by a death doula.
Terminally ill people visit this house to spend their final hours before drinking a medication that ends their life.
“All of this is free... This return to ritual and tradition is grounded in community care, not profit."
Preparations for the guest's death start soon before their arrival. Underneath the soft-colored bedsheets are heated mattresses and the beds are adjustable, like those found in hospitals.
At 11:15 am, the pharmacist delivered the medication. The package contained pre-meds to stave off nausea and a compound created specifically to induce death.
In any other circumstance consuming such great quantities of this medication would be considered an overdose. In this case though it is exactly the correct dose, literally what the doctor ordered: a medicine to end acute suffering.
This guest went to hospital for a bad cold. While she was there, the doctors discovered she had stage 4 lung cancer. Around two weeks later she arrived at this house determined to die.
“The biggest ritual is making sure that things slow down.”
“I used to have a Corolla and I loved my little Corolla but you can’t fit a body in a Corolla.”
A neighborhood of gentle hills and winding streets lined with family homes. Wrapped in the morning fog these houses are glowing and faded. Each house is made for life and living except for one.