麻豆约拍

Early in 2023, the sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby fell 'flat on his face' on a pavement in central London. Soon afterwards he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease - a progressive condition for which there is no known cure. Confronting the reality of this, Nicholas decided he wanted to share his thoughts and feelings about living with a terminal illness and asked his brother, Jonathan to record these, joking "I shall have to be called Dwindleby now".

Over the following six months, the brothers sat and talked at Nicholas's kitchen table in Devon. They recorded their conversations to the sound of a ticking clock and occasional interventions from the family kitten. Nicholas describes how he shared the news with the family; the strange feeling of knowing your 'sell by date'; and yet the benefits of being able to say 'goodbye' properly. He also speaks about his urge to have some control over the manner and timing of his own death, feeling himself to be almost a 'ghost person', semi-removed from the world.

He talks to Jonathan about his vision of heaven - in which he has no belief - but imagines it would be crowded with interesting people like his beloved Bach, Handel and Shakespeare. 'I'd be in good company!' he says. He also explores the thought that the real afterlife is the legacy you leave for others - in his case, the feelings that have inspired his work as an artist.