Art and Dementia projects

To follow are Some of the Meet Me at MOMA Project matrix ideas they have employed in some of their workshops for those living with a Dementia and their carers:

• We’ve asked participants to build a landscape (specifically a cityscape) with pieces of wood.
• We’ve also asked participants to use newspaper to create collages about political events.
• We’ve asked participants to assemblage their own personal objects — bringing objects from home — to explore personal identity.
• We’ve asked participants to make a print with their body and ground charcoal as a way of investigating abstract self-portraiture.
• In the past we’ve asked participants to explore the figure by drawing with wire.
• We’ve also asked participants to investigate line by spreading ink

Meet Me at MOMA matrix system in action in Rose Cottage:

After reading some of these inspiring workshop ideas I would talk about how I went about developing one of the later workshops for Rose Cottage. I took out the Meet Me at MOMA matrix lists that I had compiled. Firstly I choose the topic of the senses, which after some research I decided to focus on the sense of smell.

After further thought and research I then choose paint and spices from the materials list, which led me to researching the possibility that printing with spice infused paints with selected foods could make for an interesting workshop. So the materials used to print with were orange halves and sections of cucumber as a contrast in colour, smell and size for the purposes of printing. Each participant chose from the selection of coloured paints, each of which were infused with different smells – cloves, lemon, mint, lavender oil….

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When I went online to search for the inspirational art works that might best represent the choice of topic, material and action I ended up revisiting the work of one of my favorite contemporary artists, Ernesto Neto.

Ernesto incorporates spices into large scale stretchy fabric installations that surround the viewer and engage wholeheartedly with the architecture of any space they are exhibited in. See the image below for the artwork that I chose to talk about with the clients in Rose Cottage.

For the more traditional artwork example I chose an oil painting by John William Waterhouse of a lady smelling a beautiful large pink rose entitled ‘The soul of the Rose’, 1903.