Meet Me at MOMA matrix system:
When I started to design a series of co-creation workshops for Rose Cottage I floundered around for hours looking for workshop ideas that would appeal to both male and female clients living with a dementia.
After much research on various groups who are regularly working with people who are living with a dementia I decided to further research and incorporate the ‘Meet me at MOMA’ (Modern Museum of Art, New York) workshop matrix system. I used this comprehensive, structured system as great starting point for the development of all the co-creation workshops in Rose Cottage.
The matrix system helps artists choose the most appropriate art topic, artistic inspiration and materials when developing workshops. It entails that the artist complies three lists. The first is a list of as many workshop topics that s/he can think of. The second should be comprehensive list of possible workshop actions and the last list all the workshop materials that are on hand and could possibly be used in a workshop.
The idea is that you start off with a comprehensive list in all three areas. All three lists can be added to at any stage. Different combinations from the three lists can lead to the development of multiple workshop plans.
For example the materials list is obvious in that you have a long list of materials to choose from e.g.: glass, card, paper, fabric, clay, recyclables. Included in the actions list are some of the many ways one could work with any material – tear, draw, build, carve. Finally the Topic list is a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of possible areas that a workshop could explore, investigate or draw inspiration from: art history, politics, landscape, home, figure, line….
The most important decision to begin with is to decide what topic you might like to explore and possible develop a workshop on. Then working my way down the two other lists of possible actions and materials I was able to build up a longer list of possible workshop ideas. At this point I spent a lot of time online researching and searching for the ‘best fit’ artists and artistic inspiration for the relevant workshop idea. When I had chosen the two artists that best represented the workshop idea I had to go through their extensive artistic outputs to see which pieces were not only the best fit but might be the most interesting to speak about with the clients in Rose Cottage. I tried for each workshop to include a ‘traditional’ and maybe lesser know ‘modern/comprehensive artist.
At this point much work then went into seeing what types of possible artistic outcomes could be possible with each workshop. On a few occasions I would make and bring a simple sample to explain an aspect of the chosen techniques being explored. As much as possible I didn’t want to bring completed sample artworks to show the clients not wanting to overly direct their processes of art making. This progression in the workshop series was developed to allow for initial uncertainty right through to more expressive opportunities available towards the end of the series.
In the following blog posts I will outline in part 2 how the schedule of each workshop was worked out, part 3. outlines examples of the Meet Me at MOMA process in action in Rose Cottage and finally part 4 looks at how and what types of workshop structure were explored throughout the series of workshops in Rose Cottage.
Art and Dementia projects 