Merle and Alf Fitzgerald.  Photo:  Anton Mayer-Miller

      Open till Late

an ongoing research project in creative ageing

 

Older people have always been a part of the community arts projects I was involved in

since I began working as an arts worker at the Cabramatta Migrant Hostel in Western                                                  

Sydney in 1982.  Sometimes they acted on the stage. At other times they designed and

made costumes, played music, told stories, took photographs, danced or acted as

translators and historical research consultants. Some were residents at aged care centres,

others lived independently. They were an integral part of my community.   In the same

waytoday when I sit down over our Sunday lunch with our children, parents, grandparents

and great grandparents, we all sit at the same table, sharing food and drink along with

different political opinions, arguments, laughter and music. Sometimes stories are repeated

and sometimes things are forgotten. That is my world. And it is the attitude I bring to

each of the projects. There has never been this sense of otherness as though older

people are somehow seperate to the rest of us.  But I also live in another world where

ageism exists with all its negative stigmas. I  live in a world where many elderly people

spend their Sundays alone at home or in residential care. 

These diaries and journals explore different ways I have actively engaged with older adults

in creating art. Some involve active participation in public theatre outcomes where the focus

is on social connectedness, self expression  and the opportunity to re-imagine their world in

different ways.  Other strategies focus on a more personal one on one approach in dementia

units using a reminisce method including music, sensory processes re-enactment and play

to trigger memory. I have also used strategies to connect older people with others such as

with the older residents of the Oshima Island Leprosorium in Japan with older and younger

people from Australia.   My aim in this on going research project is to further contribute

in finding way to enrich the lives of older people, particularly those with dementia and to help

breakdown the stigmatism that still exists with attitudes towards older people..

 

 

 

Nagoya

In Nagoya I visited two residential aged care units                                                     that use art strategies to re-engage older people.

Washington DC