33312418

STaCS Submission Front Sheet

STUDENT/ REG No8 DIGIT NUMBER ON ID

BADGE

33312418

PROGRAMME NAME & YEAR

MA Participatory and Community Arts Year 2015-16

MODULE CODE

CA71014A

GENERIC MODULE TITLE

Practice-based project

WORD COUNT

8466

ASSIGNMENT DEADLINE

Sept 2nd

DATE OF SUBMISSION

August 30th

Essay or Assignment Title(type in grey box below)

Through the Garden Door

Please ensure when you submit your assignment that you attach the following documents;

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333124181. Submission Front Sheet2. Plagiarism Document 3. Disability Front Sheet if applicable 4. If your submission is late please complete the

Extenuating Circumstances form and provide your evidence

Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an attempt (deliberate or inadvertent) to gain advantage by the representation of another person's work, without acknowledgement of the source, as the student's own for the purposes of satisfying formal assessment requirements.

Recognised forms of plagiarism include

1. the use in a student's own work of more than a single phrase from another person's work without the use of quotation marks and acknowledgement of the source;

2. the summarising of another person's work by simply changing a few works or altering the order of presentation, without acknowledgement;

3. the use of ideas or intellectual data of another person without acknowledgement of the source, or the submission or presentation of work as if it were the student's own, which are substantially the ideas or intellectual data of another person;

4. copying the work of another person; 5. the submission of work, as if it were the student's own, which has

been obtained from the internet or any other form of information technology;

6. the submission of coursework making significant use of unattributed digital images such as graphs, tables, photographs, etc. taken from books/articles, the internet or from the work of another person;

7. the submission of a piece of work which has previously been assessed for a different award or module or at a different institution as if it were new work;

8. a student who allows or is involved in allowing, either knowingly or unknowingly, another student to copy another's work including physical or digital images would be deemed to be guilty of plagiarism.

9. If plagiarism is suspected students will be required to supply an electronic copy of the work in question so that it may be subjected to electronic plagiarism detection testing. Therefore students are required to keep work electronically until after they receive their results as electronic detection may be part of the investigative process.

Source: Assessment Handbook 15f.

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Through the Garden Door

Summary

This pilot project involved two visual artists working with residents of a residential home in Bury St Edmunds to transform an unloved outdoor space into a personalised and sensory art garden.

The project took place between March and June 2015. The residents, most of whom have mid to late stage dementia engaged in six arts workshops that took an open ended, personalised approach that adapted techniques and sources of inspiration to each participant’s needs and interests.

The project placed art and socialisation at its heart. The artists planned to learn more about making art with people with dementia and take these experiences forward to inform their future practice. As well as creating a space where people could socialise while making art together we were also looking to find out to what extent the participants made creative and aesthetic decisions during the project and which activities and approaches most successfully allowed them to do this.

The artists planned to develop the participants’ ideas and art to make the outdoor artwork and, with the support of project partner Bury in Bloom, an art garden would be installed and planted. This garden would act as a project legacy in three ways: primarily it would remind the residents of their involvement in the project; a sensory space would be created and finally, it would act as a starting point for conversation and connection between residents, care workers and visitors.

The project was to be publicised locally and nationally through project partner Bury in Bloom, creating connections between the care home and local community and also communicating the artistic interests and capabilities of

the participants to a wider audience.

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In submitting this work I confirm I have read and understood the regulations relating to plagiarism and academic misconduct. Jacquie Campbell

33312418Acknowledgements‘Through the Garden Door’ has been supported by Grants for the Arts and Suffolk County Council Locality budget. The artists worked in partnership with the residential home and Bury in Bloom.Particular thanks to Gill Bosely, occupational therapist, for her support and guidance.

List of illustrationsFigure 1 Spectrum of Participation (Lowe 2012)………………………p.8 Figure 2 Site for art garden……………………………………………….. p.12 Figure 3 Drawings by residents………………………………………….. .p.14 Figure 4 Proposed plant shapes viewed through iPad…………………. p.15 Figure 5 Activity worker helping Doris with mosaics…………………… p.15 Figure 6 Decisions on colours and layout of tiles………………………. p.16 Figure 7 Careful colour mixing…………………………………………….p.16 Figure 8 Pattern making on a bird box…………………………………….p.17 Figure 9 Stan starting out on a painted owl……………………………….p.17 Figure 10 Photo call for press visit…………………………………………p.17 Figure 11 Careful tile placement by Doreen………………………………p.18 Figure 12 Jane in conversation with the robin…………………………….p.19 Figure 13 Part of the finished art garden…………………………………..p.20 Figure 14 Project partners and participants in the finished garden…….p.20 Figure 15 Mosaic and metal flowers and leaves………………………….p.21 All photographs are the artists’ own

Contents

Context……………………………………………………………………………p.5Arts and dementia research….…….……………………………………... p.5

Participatory practice context.......………………………………………….p.8 Local context.........................................................................................p.10

What we hoped to achieve through the project………………………….p.10

The project diary

Pre-start date…………………………………………………………….p.11

Preparatory meeting……………………………………………………p.11

Workshop preparation…………………………………………………p.12

Session 1………………………………………………………………...p.13

Session 2…………………………………………………………………p.14

Session 3…………………………………………………………………p.15

Session 4…………………………………………………………………p.16

Session 5…………………………………………………………………p.17

Session 6………………………………………………………………....p.18

Project sharing and legacy……………………………………………..p.18

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33312418Evaluation process…………………………………………………………………………..p.21

Project findings………………………………………………………………………......p.22

Critical Review……………………………………………………………………………p.25

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………p.26

Bibliography...…………………………………………………………………..P.28

Appendix A, Project Budget…………………………………………………P.30

Appendix B, Project Timeline………………………………………………..P.32

Context

My interest in developing a participatory project with older people was a response to an encounter with inspirational work in this field delivered by Entelechy Arts in Deptford. I attended a celebratory event showcasing the artistic output of their regular arts drop-in club for older people, Meet Me at the Albany, which “recognises the creative potential of the over 60’s” (Gardner, 2014) and balances artistic outcomes with the social aims of tackling isolation and loneliness (Gardner, 2014). In an interview with Lynn Gardner, Gavin Barlow, CEO of The Albany, highlights that a key factor to successful work in this area is “to allow the participants to have agency and recognise them as artists, even if they might only just have started out” (Gardner, 2014) .

In the darkened and packed house of the ‘21st Century Tea Dance’ event an elderly lady stood up to share a funny and moving piece of prose about how people view her ageing self as she goes about her business in Deptford. A gentleman, who I had previously met, then stood up and sung one of his own songs. He told me that, before coming to the Albany, he had not sung in thirty years because he did not feel people wanted to listen to him. Later a lady in her nineties led the dancing alongside performance artist/rapper Christopher Green, disguised as his alter-ego, ‘RnB Pensioner’, Ida Barr. Aside from the over 65’s, I also noticed that many young people had gathered at the event seemingly aware that this was a happening place to be on a Tuesday afternoon.

My impression from this visit was that the participants were being given the opportunity and support to explore and express, through the weekly art workshops, matters that were important to them. The ‘tea dance’ event was a space where their voices could be heard and the quality of the artwork meant that the wider community had come along to listen. The art forms did not make assumptions about what might be appropriate for older people instead they expanded choice and offered opportunities to explore the unfamiliar and the unknown (Organ, 2012, P.3)

My experience of this bold approach to arts programming for older people led me to consider with my collaborative partner in participatory work, sculptor

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33312418Elizabeth Cooke, how aspects of our own practice could be developed for a local arts project with older people. We were particularly interested to work with people with dementia as we both had experience of close family members living with these symptoms. I had also recently delivered a project with older people in a day centre in Deptford working with a peer group of post-graduate students. This workshop had successfully engaged people by offering the purposeful activity of transforming charity shop finds into an urban art garden. We decided to further develop this idea but first, to understand how this type of work might fit into the broader discourse around arts and ageing, we investigated where the current focus of research was directed within this field.

Arts and dementia research

In the UK we live within an ageing population: it is forecast that the number of people aged over 75 will rise by 89% by 2039 (Office for National Statistics, 2015). This ageing demographic brings with it the societal challenge of a rising number of people living with dementia. An Age UK factsheet estimates that in 2014, 850,000 people were living with the symptoms of dementia with that figure predicted to rise to 1.14 million by 2025 (2016).

In 2012 the prime minister launched the Dementia Challenge that sought to improve the circumstances of people living with or looking after people with dementia (Department of Health, 2012). Later that year an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia published the report, Unlocking diagnosis: The key to improving the lives of people with dementia (2012). More recently the Health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced a £100 million Dementia Discovery Fund with the long-term aim to develop drugs to treat the condition (Department of Health, 2015).

Research is currently focussed on finding treatments to delay clinical onset and slow down the progress of the disease (Department of Health, 2014). However, with no miracle cure on the immediate horizon, it is recognised that, alongside this search for clinical interventions, research should focus equally into how people living with dementia can lead more fulfilling lives. This research often draws on a study by the New Economics Foundation from 2008 that identified “five ways to wellbeing” (2008, P.1). The report is informed by a wide ranging review of medical and health research and shows that people who adopt these forms of behaviour are generally healthier and have a longer life expectancy (Matarasso, 2013). The five ways to wellbeing are:

• Connect… to nurture strong social ties with others;• Be active… to engage in physical activity of any kind;• Take notice… to be aware of the everyday experience of living;• Keep learning… to take up opportunities for exploration and discovery;• Give… to offer help, time or knowledge freely to others(New Economics Foundation, 2008, P.1)

Francois Matarasso drew on this research in an article about arts and ageing, highlighting that:

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33312418while these behaviours can be found across the spectrum of human activity and social life, it is striking that they are all central to the practice of amateur and community art activity (2013, P.5).

He proposes that at a time when a person’s capacities are becoming limited, art is a way in which they can still lead a full life (Matarasso, 2013).

Recent scientific research indicates that an aesthetic perception might remain in people with dementia, even in the later stages of the condition (Graham, Stockinger and Leder, 2013). It is also proposed that the cognitive impairment caused by the symptoms of dementia could, in some cases, open up new pathways in the brain that help access a person’s creativity (Killick and Craig, 2011).

These proposals have led to a proliferation of arts-based activities being put forward as a valuable way for people living with dementia to counter the negative aspects of their condition. Organisations concerned with ageing and artists working in the field continue to seek robust scientific evidence that these arts interventions can have a beneficial effect on the well-being and health of older people and even play a part in slowing the onset of dementia. However, interviewed for a BBC article, Lis Nielsen, programme director at the National Institute on Ageing in the US, states that:

Most of the studies that have tried to demonstrate these effects haven't really met the rigorous standards of scientific research…In addition; there are very few studies that have had a cost-benefit analysis. So if we want to be able to both fund arts programmes and encourage them to be adopted by the wider community we really need to show there are proven health benefits (Nielson, 2013).

A cross-disciplinary research project, Dementia and Imagination, has, over the last two years, sought to meet this challenge and identify best visual art practice in the arts and dementia field (2016). The project team, which encompasses a wide range of expertise in different disciplines, is now working with a team of artists to develop, test and evaluate the effects of arts interventions. These artists are currently developing new work adopting the most successful methodologies. A key element of this programme is the dissemination of output and findings to change awareness and understanding of dementia in the wider society and to act as a catalyst to forming dementia friendly communities.

Interestingly, from the point of view of our own participatory practice, Dementia and Imagination distinguishes participatory arts from art therapy although acknowledges that there is often an overlap between the two. Their current focus is on the former explaining that:

Our particular project is not engaged with reminiscence, or using the art to express difficult emotions. It focuses on enjoying and being ‘in the moment’, being creative and making social connections (Dementia and Imagination, 2016).

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33312418The art activities may provide therapeutic benefits such as an enhanced or relaxed mood but the emphasis, similar to the work of Entelechy Arts, is focused on unlocking the creative energy of the participants.

In light of the current research and practice we identified the elements that we would use to underpin our own work. Returning to Matarasso’s notion that older people can maintain or gain agency through art, we placed the enabling of creative expression and decision-making as the main project aim (2013). The people we would be working with have scant opportunity to take decisions or exercise any form of control over their lives and there existed a chance, through the art-making process, that they could gain agency and self-esteem.

Further to this aim we also placed a focus on conversation and social interaction between residents, care workers, artists and visitors and, like the Dementia and Imagination research, we also sought to create a dialogue on a wider scale, between the residential home community and the people of the town. It was likely that the emphasis on creative expression and socialisation would lead to other ameliorative outcomes such as an enhanced sense of well-being and improved health for the participants but it would be beyond the scope of this project to measure these in a robust scientific way.

Participatory practice context

Beyond the dementia field it was also important for us to consider where this type of work would be situated within our own artistic practice and to create a theoretical framework for the project. Personally, I would cite participation as my art form whereas my colleague, Elizabeth, works primarily as an autonomous artist. Working together on participatory projects we believe it is important to contextualise our work within the wider discourse of socially engaged/participatory practice.

Toby Lowe offers the following table, Spectrum of Participation, as a response to the debate between art critics Grant Kester and Claire Bishop as they attempt to define and evaluate the emerging art form of participatory practice (Lowe, 2012, P.4):

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Figure 1 Spectrum of Participation, Lowe, 2012

Although the debate has moved on over the last few years this diagram still acts as good starting point to understand participatory practice. Chrissie Tiller proposes that attempts to categorise participatory practice in this way are:

To do with being transparent about our intentions: being clear with ourselves and those we are working with why we, as artists, are engaged with a particular group of participants, a particular issue or in creating a particular piece of collaborative work (Tiller, 2014, P.2, italics in original).

Our participatory practice up to this point had been modelled on Kester’s side of the spectrum. We understood ourselves to be facilitators enabling creative self-expression and making by the participants. Up until this project we had considered projects we work on to be co-authored with the participants but the development of the project at St Peter’s House led us to reconsider some of the basic tenets of our practice.

Firstly, as artists, it was important for us to consider Claire Bishop’s concern that within participatory practice, outcomes are often prioritised over aesthetic quality (2012). Bishop proposes that “an emphasis on socially beneficial outcomes to justify funding negates the intrinsic value of “artistic experimentation and research” (2012, P.13).

Kester also warns about the potential instrumentalisation of participatory approaches to fall in line with government agendas (2011). In light of these critiques, there would be a need, in this project, to continually evaluate how the role of the artist differentiated from that of the care workers in the setting of the residential home and also to critique the quality of the art produced.

More recently socially engaged art (SEA) has emerged as one of the preferred labels for visual artists with a participatory practice. Sophie Hope views SEA as a response to the concerns about artists becoming “a social service devoid of any critical or artistic integrity” (2011, P.33). This art form favours an artist-led rather than facilitator approach “although methods of facilitation, participation and collaboration are often central to processes of socially engaged art” (Hope, 2011, P.33). The focus of an SEA project is as

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33312418likely to be a dematerialised, interdisciplinary process that effects social change as the production of an art object.

We had viewed the project up to now as practice based research that would allow the artists to find out more about approaches, materials and methodology that might engender a sense of agency in people with dementia. We had not considered a critical element to the work as we did not feel this to be appropriate when making art with people with impaired cognitive abilities. At St Peter’s House the participants would be incapable of giving informed consent and it appeared unlikely that they would work collaboratively with the artists to shape the process. This lack of consent raised the question of artistic authorship: within this setting it was likely that the artists would assume directorial control of the project with the participants taking creative decisions within the activities. We were mindful that this shift in power relations might result in a top down, patronising approach. Kester describes this relationship as a “disadvantaged community…’serviced’ by the visiting artist” (2004, P.171). Perhaps the collaborative relationship with participants with dementia could only be imagined through close observation and listening to individual responses and then an adjustment of the process based on a reflective assessment with the care home staff.

With the assumption that the artists would inevitably retain artistic control we needed to decide whether process or product should be privileged in this project. Generally our work embraces a process led approach but, in this case, the physical product of the proposed art garden would signal a clear purpose to the participants ensuring that the art activities were understood on adult terms rather than being misunderstood as children’s play. Also, knowing that our participants had little capacity for short term memory we realised that the project needed to provide a legacy beyond the immediate experience of taking part. The proposed final product of an art garden would encourage conversation between residents, staff and visitors and perhaps remind some of the residents that they had been involved in the project. At this point it was undecided whether the artwork would be made by the residents or by the artists.

Local context

After considering the theoretical and contextual underpinning of the proposed work it was important to explore the local context and establish whether there was a need for this type of work.

West Suffolk has a larger population aged over 65 than the national average (Forest Heath and St Edmundsbury Councils, 2014). A local organisation, Bury in Bloom, that seeks to improve the town through gardening, informed us that they had received many requests to extend their ‘Junior Green Fingers’ programme into a project for residential homes and sheltered housing settings. This opportunity to build on an existing and popular programme appeared to be a way to develop an activity that was relevant to the potential participants. The projects run by this organisation also attract a lot of local press coverage and are sometimes featured nationally. The possibility of accessing the means to disseminate the project findings and output coupled with their established links with care homes meant that this organisation could potentially be a good project partner.

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33312418This partnership led to a meeting with the manager of a residential home that cares for 36 residents, mainly with mid to late stage dementia. The manager had already adopted progressive ideas about dementia care and had implemented major changes in the home to make the environment more dementia friendly.

In this initial consultation meeting we discussed what I had learnt from the workshop at the day centre in Deptford and how these ideas could be developed in the setting of the residential home. We looked at possible physical settings for workshops and artwork and identified outcomes. It was also agreed that we might introduce a cross-generational element to the project by involving students from the neighbouring college or volunteers from Bury in Bloom in the planting process. Although this was not a key aim for this particular project we saw it as a way of challenging the isolation of the residential home from the community in which it is situated and also as a means of communicating the project to a wider audience.

Given that this would be primarily a project with art research aims, funding was successfully applied for from Grants for Arts with match funding secured from a Suffolk County Councillor’s locality budget (See appendix A). At this stage a proposed project timeline was drawn up (See Appendix B).

What we hoped to achieve through the project Taking part in the activities would engender a sense of agency in the

participants allowing them to take decisions and control of their artistic output and to shape the environment they live in

Participants would have the opportunity for self-expression through artistic activity leading to relaxation and enhanced mood.

The activities and art garden would promote social interaction and conversation between residents, families and care workers.

The artists and staff would learn more about appropriate methodology for working with the participants with mid-late stage dementia and build on this experience to inform their future practice in this field.

The press coverage and publicity from the project would raise awareness within the local community of the artistic abilities of people with dementia.

The project diaryPre-start date

Unfortunately, the care home manager with whom we had developed the project abruptly resigned over a dispute at work. The new manager agreed to support the project but wanted to make some changes. We visited the care

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33312418home to meet her and came to a compromise by agreeing a new site for the garden.

Preparatory meeting

A preparatory meeting was held in the care home with the occupational therapist, activity worker, representative from partner organisation (Bury in Bloom) and the two artists.

We agreed the following key points;

The upstairs activity room would be the initial venue for the workshops. This room was distant from the general socialising areas of the home and the residents would have to be invited to attend and taken there by the care workers. It is also away from the garden which was to be the inspiration for the artwork. Despite the slightly unsatisfactory location the occupational therapist was keen to experiment with this room to try and create an expectation of socialisation and activity in this space.

The sessions would take place mid-morning when the residents are quite alert and include coffee and cakes.

The finished artwork would be recognisable and easily understandable to the residents. The occupational therapist explained that people with advanced dementia get a lot of satisfaction from recognising everyday objects and that abstraction can cause anxiety and disorientation.

The occupational therapist would use ‘Coming Soon’ signs and images around the home to create an interest in the project. The artists would also leave an eye catching display of the previous week’s activities along with photographs to encourage people to attend the sessions.

Reflection and evaluation would take place immediately after each session with the occupational therapist, activity worker and artists. The occupational therapist would use the standard assessment forms to measure, on a weekly basis, the response of each resident to the activity. We also agreed to use photography as a method of evaluation of the general atmosphere in the room. The participants had varying levels of photographic consent: in some cases consent could be given by the residential home and in others it had to be agreed with relatives. This meant we would need to be careful how these photographs were used.

Workshop preparation

The transformation of the outdoor space was to be a purposeful starting point for the activities. The area to be transformed was visible from the downstairs sun lounge and shaded by large trees. At this point we had not decided whether the artists or the residents would physically make the outdoor artwork for the garden.

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Figure 2 Site for art garden

Acknowledging the known factors we drew up a list of approaches, materials and techniques that we might use over the six sessions. The first session was planned in detail but with an awareness that it would be essential to observe and listen carefully to the responses of each participant to inform how it should evolve. The subsequent sessions would be informed by the previous evaluation in order to tailor the activities to the participants’ responses, abilities and interests. We could see the project goals shifting as the project progressed. Our approach would be slow, gentle and honest looking to gain the trust of the participants.

Session 1

The artistic objective was to introduce the project; handle resources; talk about ideas for the garden and experiment with drawing and mark making in response to the resources.

An eclectic array of sensory objects were brought to the session, these included cut flowers and herbs; freshly dug vegetables and bulbs; gardening equipment and a poem. Thinking about how participants would be able to access materials, we set the working space up so that the a range of resources and materials were within easy reach of each participant.

The residents were interested by the resources and chatted about the types of gardens they liked and sometimes memories from past gardens. Smelling the herbs encouraged lively conversation within the group and a discussion emerged around the table about culinary uses. The herbs also offered a sensory experience for the participants with late stage dementia who seemed absorbed and relaxed as they handled the plants to release the aromas. One lady particularly enjoyed a familiar poem about gardening and recited the lines along with the artist. In future sessions we would offer fewer, more carefully

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33312418selected and presented resources to avoid sensory overload and to attach a greater sense of value to the objects.

The residents were particularly relaxed when closely observing an object in a one on one situation. Most of the participants demonstrated recognition of the photographs of the garden area that we planned to work with and also seemed to understand that we would be making art for that space.

Drawing and mark making, on the other hand, was a difficult opening activity with most participants nervous about putting a wrong mark on a piece of paper. Many spoke about bad experiences in art lessons at school. However, when we drew with them or used techniques such as frottage the participants were more relaxed and confident to make marks. As artists who often work with children, we are usually wary of making a mark on a participant's work but in this situation it felt like the right thing to do. One lady carefully observed and drew a gerbera flower (Figure 4) spending time with the artist selecting colours and choosing appropriate marks to represent the petals. She was absorbed in the process and commented how relaxed and interested she felt even though she did not consider herself an artist.

Figure 3 Drawings by residents

During this session it became clear that the participants would not have the physical capabilities to use the materials necessary for making a permanent outdoor artwork so it was agreed that the artists would make the garden artwork themselves based on the ideas and forms emerging in the workshops.

Session 2

The artistic objective for this session was for participants to identify plant shapes they would like to see in the garden and use a paper cut technique to plan these shapes. The papercut artwork would be used to inform the mosaic flowers and metal leaves that the artists would later make. We had seen the Matisse ‘Paper Cuts’ exhibition at Tate Modern recently and were intrigued by the idea that during old age Matisse directed an assistant to cut the shapes he required for his work.

In practice, the participants lacked motivation to handle materials or tools and had no strong feelings about preferred plant shapes. We interpreted this reluctance as an indication that the activity appeared uninteresting and pointless to them although the occupational therapist proposed that this generation would not naturally initiate activity and would wait for the ‘teacher’ to lead.

The artists ended up cutting and laying the shapes and photographed them on the iPad. The iPad was a beneficial tool, allowing the participants to view

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33312418their own and other people’s work from a distance without having to physically move.

Figure 4 Proposed plant shapes viewed through iPad

During the session the occupational therapist asked one of the participants to bring a tapestry from her room. This sparked a conversation amongst the group and was used to create a poppy design for a mosaic. This led us to think about how objects and processes from the immediate environment and everyday life of the participants are perhaps a more important inspiration to work with than resources brought in from outside the home.

Session 3

We brought along flower shaped bases inspired by the ideas generated last week and invited the participants to lay out mosaic tiles using a temporary adhesive. The mosaic activity was successful: the participants started handling and laying out tiles without encouragement from the artists or staff. They also took creative decisions over colour and pattern sometimes asking for particular colours to be handed to them. The process of pattern making appeared to be calming and satisfying and we wondered whether the lack of permanent mark made the activity less stressful and intimidating. Cutting the tiles using tile nippers was taken on as a purposeful activity by a man who, we were later informed, had never joined in an activity session before.

The residents also enjoyed hearing about the stories of the tiles themselves, their provenance and the process of making them, and we realised this interest in materials could create a narrative for future sessions. We again used the IPad to allow the participants to view their own and others’ work.

Throughout the session we observed a sense of well-being, absence of distress and social interaction within the group. The activity worker, told us

“I’ve never seen the residents working in this way, taking decisions. Usually I have to tell them what to do at every step of the way”.

Session 4

The objective was to introduce painting as a purposeful activity. The session was moved to a sun lounge with a view of the garden space to encourage a connection between the two.

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33312418We brought along bird boxes and pebbles and allowed the participants to paint them as they wished. Learning from previous sessions we looked at immediate surroundings for inspiration, one lady mixed paints to the colour of a pansy found on the patio while another created patterns inspired by her floral blouse.

Some of the participants appeared calm and concentrated, engaged in the physical process of mixing paints on a plate and then painting the plate itself. Others appeared to understand the purposeful nature of the activity and set out to paint the bird boxes taking creative decisions over the design with one lady actively counting out rows of pattern for her design. A couple of people said they were having fun and hadn’t painted since school. Someone else ate the paint.

Session 5

In this session we again used the mosaics to check the participants’ responses. They once again worked independently and were happy to receive a visit from our project partner, Bury in Bloom, accompanied by local press to photograph the project.

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Session 6In our last workshop we decided to test out the idea of using a strong narrative and to introduce a performative element to engage a larger group of participants. A group of five participants were fully absorbed as Elizabeth painted a backdrop for the garden, talking through her process while inviting contributions from her audience. This approach meant that I was available to work on a one on one basis with other participants in the same session.

Project sharing and legacyThe artists made mosaic flowers, birds and metal leaves informed by the work of the participants in the sessions. The overall plan for the siting of the artwork

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33312418was discussed with our partner organisation so that the planting scheme could be planned.

Our project partner was unable to recruit students or volunteers help the residents to plant the garden and employed an outside contractor to do the work. This meant that a potential opportunity for cross-generational activity and communication of the project outside the residential home community was not realised.

This artwork was installed in the newly planted garden by the artists and the press arrived to photograph it on the same day. The event invoked excitement and interest amongst the residents which permeated through to staff and visitors. One of the visitors commented that she’d been amazed to see the mosaic work that her mother had created in the workshops and that it had opened up a conversation between them. Another family member commissioned copies of one of the mosaics as a reminder of her family member in the home. Many of the residents came out to spend time with us as we installed the artwork without being prompted by the care workers and thanked us for making the art garden. Like the mosaic activity this was another example of the participants being empowered to act independently.

When we suggested to the residents that the garden was equally their own work very few remembered having taken part in the workshops. For some, the suggestion triggered memories but for others the struggle to remember caused apparent stress.

We left resources with the activity worker so that she could continue using mosaic techniques in the activity sessions.

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Evaluation process The evaluation method was based on a careful observation of participants’ behaviour within an ongoing process of reflection. As the artists and care workers were integrated in the art process this method allowed for the observation and reflection on the participants’ behaviour as it emerged. The approach drew on Schön’s idea of reflecting critically during practice and allowed us the flexibility to adjust activities in response to the participants’ experiences (Schön, 1983).

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33312418A formal reflection and evaluation took place after each workshop involving artists, occupational therapist and activity worker. From our collective observations and photographic evidence we reflected on what had happened; what had been successful and the ideas we would take forward for the following session. The occupational therapist also used a systematic method of assessment for each individual participant indicating how they had appeared to respond to the activity and setting. The occupational therapist had said we could take copies of the reports at the end of the project but when we returned after her departure the assessments could no longer be found.

Collecting verbal data from the participants themselves about the sessions was difficult and unreliable due to their cognitive abilities. The slightly removed venue for the sessions also meant that it was difficult to gain feedback from care workers who were all downstairs on lunch duty when we finished the sessions. Although it was difficult to elicit verbal feedback from the participants, we interpreted repeated attendance as an indicator that they had found the activity enjoyable.

Post project feedback was sought from partner organisations, staff and visitors to the art garden as the opportunity arose. In a future project a more systematic approach to interviewing staff not directly involved in the project and visitors to the home would be beneficial. In this way we might be able to explore longer term changes in the participants’ behaviour and well-being during and possibly after a workshop programme.

Project findingsEven though we no longer have a record of the individual assessment sheets our session observations and photographs demonstrate a happy and relaxed environment in the activity room during the sessions. This atmosphere was possibly engendered by multiple factors therefore it was important to carefully consider each activity to extract the approaches that were most successful in meeting the projected project outcomes and also to consider any unexpected outcomes.

Close up focused observation of a single object was very enjoyable on a one to one basis with the participants. This close looking led to conversations about how the colours, shapes and textures could be represented using the art materials available. In dementia terminology, this time when people are completely absorbed is referred to as a “butterfly moment” (Sheard, 2007, no page number). Despite the success of this approach, the occupational therapist commented at the time that it would be difficult to maintain this level of one to one attention in a care home setting.

The sensory resources we brought into the workshops engendered conversation but we discovered that the starting point for meaningful artwork was more likely to be found in the familiar surroundings such as a pattern in a curtain observed on a daily basis. By introducing the everyday environment of

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33312418the care home into the artwork there exists the opportunity of introducing a more critical dialogue to the work.

The mosaic tiles were the most popular medium and also the most successful way of encouraging creative decision making by the participants. People were attracted by the aesthetic value of the tiles and became animated when talking about their colour and texture preferences. They also understood the tiles and mosaic making equipment as familiar objects that some of them remembered using in a more functional way at home. Without being guided by the artists the participants immediately starting arranging the tiles into complex patterns; they took decisions on how they would lay the tiles and asked for more colours as they needed them. Some people used them in innovative ways, creating stacked, sculptural work. Working on a generic base appeared to inspire more expressive work than working onto a pictorial shape. The way the residents used the tiles allowed us, as artists, to think about mosaic in a non-traditional way. This technique is bound by processes established over thousands of years to ensure the longevity of a finished artwork in an outdoor setting. The consideration of mosaic as an ephemeral art form would open up many new ways of working with participants and also lead to new ideas in our own work.

The fascination with this media also led us to think about the value of using the tools and art materials themselves as the focal point for activities. Experimentation with this approach in the final workshop moved us away from traditional workshop methodology and opened up new possibilities of ways of engaging people with dementia in an art process. This was an unexpected project outcome and building on this knowledge we would try techniques with intrinsically fascinating materials such as felt making in future projects.

Apart from the success of the mosaic sessions we also noticed that activities that linked well to the garden and had an obvious purpose were popular. This purposefulness could be achieved by offering non-traditional resources such as household tools. A man who never usually participated in art activities spent a morning cutting glass mosaic tiles for someone else’s work using specialist tile clippers while another participant became totally absorbed in painting wooden leaves with decorators’ brushes for the border. This type of activity was often taken up by people who, we were told, spent little time outside of their rooms. The activity gave them the chance to socialise with other residents and feel they were making something beneficial for the home. Stan, who painted the leaves, was fully absorbed in the task and gained confidence to move on to painting an owl. He occasionally remarked “I didn’t know I could paint, I haven’t painted since school”.

Through the six sessions we explored how the physical layout of the room could impact on the artistic and social engagement. Although we were concerned with finding a layout through which we could engage the group as a whole, the occupational therapist helped us to understand that constant active participation was not always necessary or desirable.

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33312418Digital technology such as the iPad was a practical and beneficial tool for personalised creativity and engagement (Baring Foundation, 2015). Since the project completion, The Baring Foundation has published an updated report about digital arts and older people (2015). The artists interviewed for this research identified an important role for digital technology to enhance the practice of more traditional media and to facilitate access and multi-sensory experiences (The Baring Foundation, 2015)).

Towards the end of the project we had started to learn to use the physical abilities of the participants as the starting point for planning activities. It would be worthwhile to take this a step further, using their capabilities and also the areas of restraint as a conceptual framework for artistic enquiry.

The residents were invited to the workshop each week with most returning for repeat sessions. On average eight people attended each session and they appeared to enjoy the lively, sociable atmosphere of the room even if they didn’t join in with the activity but just sat quietly and observed. We were told that three of our regular participants rarely left their rooms so the fact that they joined the workshop was viewed as an achievement. Some of the staff also commented that the workshops had allowed them to see the residents in a new light; challenged assumptions about capabilities and offered a valuable insight into personal interests.

Visitors to the project expressed surprise at the lively atmosphere. The press photographer admitted that he had not been looking forward to visiting but was quite overwhelmed by the positive attitudes and happy faces he witnessed. In some sessions family members joined the residents and enjoyed a new way of connecting with their loved one. The activities offered them the opportunity to sit quietly making art together and inspired new topics of conversation.

The workshop sessions appeared to be a more successful way of promoting social interaction than the art garden itself. On post project visits to the care home by the artists and project partners, there was no evidence of residents spending time in the garden and, disappointingly, the patio doors to that area of the garden were generally kept locked. This lack of ownership of the finished artwork could be attributed to the rapid staff turnover experienced during the project. Also the departure of the occupational therapist who had fully invested in the project meant that we had to try and quickly build a new relationship with one of the activity workers. We also failed to involve residents and staff and families in the planting and installation process and, due to our lack of contact with the new management structure, the art garden open day for families and friends did not happen. Staff turnover had been a problem throughout this project and formed a valuable learning point leading us to propose that the project legacy should not be reliant on the current staff. More usefully, a critical arts intervention in this setting, would lead to institutional change or leave an art object that could provide stimulation and enjoyment independently of a specific staffing structure.

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33312418The project enjoyed extensive local press coverage over an extended period of time due to the PR experience of our project partners. Through this coverage many local people from a variety of disciplines enquired about our experiences working with the residents of the care home questioning whether we felt an arts intervention had been useful and enjoyable for people with mid-late stage dementia. We replied that we believed that the residents had benefitted from the workshops but we needed to reconsider the final product.

The project was also introduced to a wider audience when it became part of Bury in Bloom’s submission for a national award. Reflecting on the amount of interest generated we believe that the project successfully encouraged a wider dialogue and forged new understandings about the dementia community.

To summarise, the key areas of learning that we will take forward into future practice are:

The knowledge gained about the artistic approaches which most successfully encourage creative decision-making and engender a sense of agency in the participants (detailed in the project diary and earlier in this section).

An understanding that the artistic starting point and content should focus more on an exploration of the everyday life, environment and objects that surround the participants with the potential of opening a critical dialogue.

A more practical understanding of the physical limitations of the participants and the idea that these restraints could be a starting point for artistic content and activities.

The realisation that the project legacy should be independent of the current staffing structure

.

Critical reviewIn consultation with the care home manager, we agreed that, given the physical limitations of the participants and a stated need for a final artwork which contained recognisable forms and images, the artists would make the outdoor artwork. We had questioned the issue of authorship from the outset of the project, asking whether co-authorship was appropriate or achievable in this context but eventually decided to make an artwork informed by the ideas, preferences and art produced by the participants.

The occupational therapist asked us whether it would be difficult to make art based on the ideas of another person. On reflection, I would say it was a difficult decision-making process and that this approach affected the quality of the artwork for the garden. A formalist viewpoint supposes that an artwork should either function aesthetically as an art object or possess “an immanent

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33312418meaning” (Kester,1998, P.4) to be extracted by its audience. This project set out with artistic aims but I feel it would not be critiqued favourably against these traditional art world values.

A more meaningful physical output may have been an exhibition of the participants’ actual work accompanied by an artist’s response to the project created with consent from the participants. This approach was used by Dementia and Imagination who commissioned the artist Carol Hanson to make an artistic reflection of the “process and context” (Dementia and Imagination, 2016) of a project that worked with people with dementia. This resulted in the provocative and witty installation, ‘Carry on Cartoon Camping’: a touring exhibit that aimed to ask questions, stimulate the audience to think in new ways and initiate a dialogue about dementia (Dementia and Imagination, 2016).

An alternative approach could also have reconsidered the relationship of process and product. As discussed earlier, SEA or participatory art often focusses on a dematerialised process and adopts the methodology of a variety of disciplines including anthropology, ethnography and sociology. Kester proposes that, as artists crossing between these disciplines, we need to understand how meaning is made within these different contexts and the possibility that “breakthroughs occur in the disciplinary interstices” (Kester, 1998, P.4). This project could have expressed its artistic aim as dialogical engagement and been critiqued in light of the new understandings and awareness generated during this process. According to Kester “there is no single “work” to be judged” (1998, P.4). Dialogical work can be critiqued in a multitude of ways and can take on different meanings depending on how it is situated(Kester, 1998).

Using this approach as a theoretical framework would mean that the artistic focus would shift to the process and a more valuable one-off arts intervention might draw on our findings about the importance of the immediate environment as artistic content. By embedding the activities in the social or cultural processes of the everyday life of the residents and care home a dialogue could be generated that leads to new knowledge and/or effects change. This change might be as simple as the activity workers adopting new ways of working with the residents or the use of new technology.

The knowledge I have gained through the project in this residential home has given me the confidence to create a more open dialogue with a wider range of care workers and managers. The rapid staff turnover we witnessed at the home appears to be endemic in this sector and perhaps needs to be understood as part of the conceptual framework of any future project. A close working relationship with individual staff members is a key factor to achieving project outcomes and a valuable learning resource for the artists involved but the project legacy, ideally, needs to exist beyond the current staffing structure. Returning to the work of Dementia and Imagination, part of the legacy should potentially look outwards from the immediate setting to challenge the often

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33312418segregated life of older people and generate better understanding about ageing and living with dementia in the wider community.

Going forward we have maintained our relationship with the occupational therapist who now manages the local Age UK day centre. She was impressed by the open-ended and slowed-down approach we adopted and was surprised by the sense of empowerment she saw in the residents. Working with her we have developed and secured funding for an arts project in consultation with the day centre members. The members have collectively identified a need for activities that enable them to make art as a group that creates a collective identity for the club. The project plan indicates the importance of sustained contact with the participants and time for the artists to embed themselves in the setting observing the day to day activity. The outcomes and possible artistic content at the outset of this project are loosely defined and are expected to be defined through making art with the club members and through the development of our individual art practices during the project.

From the outset of this new project we have created a dialogue with the wider community in which the care home is situated. The local Dementia Action Alliance, the Age UK shop and our project partner, Bury in Bloom, are all keen to exhibit artwork that might be generated from the project. The Dementia Action Alliance are also interested in making a joint funding application to bring a more sustainable drop-in art club to their centre based on the findings of the project at Age UK.

ConclusionAs project leader I propose that this project achieved the planned practice- based research outcomes but did not leave a sustainable project legacy. The project provided the artists with valuable information about how people living with mid-late stage dementia can enjoy and gain agency from the process of making art. The participants appeared to enjoy and be stimulated by the activities and were calm and relaxed in the workshops. I would also suggest that the project in some ways challenged stereotypes about people with dementia particularly amongst staff and visitors.

Despite the fact that the majority of the outcomes were achieved we still questioned whether the project mattered. This was a project that privileged the aesthetic over the social but perhaps managed to fall somewhere between the two. Could it be accused of “not being useful enough for affecting ‘real change’ or ‘worthy’ and therefore not taken seriously as ‘real art” (Hope, 2011, P.10). As a short-term intervention it did not seem to offer enough of value to the participants: the residents enjoyed the activity and social interaction at the time but this experience was, in most cases, immediately forgotten. Although this is an inevitability of working with people with these symptoms I wonder whether an ongoing workshop programme with professional artists is economically viable or practical and what type of funding body would support a long –term intervention that privileged aesthetic outcomes. Robust funding

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33312418would more likely be secured as part of a social/health care programme with well-being outcomes.

Alternatively, a short-term art intervention in this type of setting could result in an object or resource that responds to the project findings and improves the day to day experiences of the participants. This product might inspire further art activities adding to the sustainability of the work. To give an example of this type of work, the University of Cambridge commissioned local arts organisation, Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination to conduct arts research that resulted in a ‘props box’ through which families could engage with local contemporary art (Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, n.d). A product along these lines could have been developed with the care workers at St Peters House as a way of encouraging future use of the garden as a starting point for other activities. This type of product with suggested ideas for use would provide a long-term legacy that survives staff turnover.

As artists, we know that we have the ability to recognise to make art in spaces and interstices that occur or to discover the gaps where critical engagement can start (Hope, 2011). This is an important area of expertise that artists bring to any situation. Building on our learning we will approach the new project at Age UK with more fluidity between aesthetic and social outcomes underpinned by Kester’s idea that a project can be critiqued in many ways (1998). We have learnt that the development of content, processes and product is a step by step process and that authorship might be transferred backwards and forwards between the artists and participants. Two weeks into the project the artistic content is not yet decided but a conversation between participants, artists, staff and some outside agencies has been started. The most powerful art is often generated from unexpected sources and even though we often need to deliver outcomes that meet funding criteria, as artists we are happy to work with the unknown with the hope that important art and knowledge emerge.

Perhaps, drawing on the philosophy of Entelechy Arts, we would be creating a space in which people could take their own creative journey accompanied by artists who are also learning and developing their practice (Gardner, 2014):

At the Albany they are trying to create a building where the art generated is about artists responding to the people using the building, as well as those using the building – such as the Meet Me at the Albany group – responding to the artists (Gardner, 2014).

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