Saturday 26 November 2016

Dementia and Creativity: Sketching Workshops


This week I got some great news! I am going to be doing more research sketching with one of the Morgan Centre team at the University of Manchester.


Do you remember that I did some work with Dr Andrew Balmer on dementia research (that's him above, with the beard), as part of my residency? Well, though that was only one day of the whole 10 month residency, he was so pleased with how it went, that he included me in a bid for some new funding. He wants to explore further the idea of dementia and creativity, running six workshops next year, which I will be sketching.


We are then going to produce a digital art book to showcase the workshops and sketches. I don't know yet exactly what I'll be recording, but I am assuming it will be similar to the activities we did previously. These are the sketches I did on the day we spent together with Alzheimer's carers.




This is just one of various spin-off work offers as a result of my Morgan Centre residency. Some are with the researchers there, but I've also had interest from other institutions. 

It's been a week of ups and downs as this Friday I also heard the disappointing news that York University didn't get the funding for a year-long residency they were keen to do with me, looking at the architecture of care homes. Hey-ho: all the things in the pipeline rely on bids for funding, so ultimately none of the rest may come off. I'm still really excited to discover that there are more research sketching-projects to be had though. It's such interesting work and, of course, I get paid for sketching!

4 comments:

Pilgrim said...

This is an idea whose time has come, both for memory retention and maintaining fine motor skills. I would bet it even helps with language and communication.

Pilgrim said...

P.S. Don't forget the beneficial effects for caregivers

Ginny Stiles said...

I am picking up this post without previous background on the project.
Could you re-post the purpose of this? Are you working WITH memory loss patients and having THEM do sketching?

Lynne the Pencil said...

Thanks Pilgrim - yes, there are so many different elements to it. have you seen the film on my website about the project from last year? http://www.lynnechapmanurbansketching.co.uk/portfolio/morgan-centre/

Ginny - it's both. The work I did earlier this year, on a mini-version of the project, was about me recording aspects of current research into dementia and of the challenges to caring for sufferers, by visiting a lab and by sitting in on discussions amongst carers. However, I also generating more frank and natural discussion through getting different groups of carers drawing.