mailout galleries and older people 26


Photo: © Gwynedd Project


FEATURE


Engage Cymru


“As a country we are living through an enormous demographic change. This has now reached a tipping point with pensioners outnumbering children for the first time. A quarter of all children born today are expected to live to reach 100 years old.” 1


To highlight this fact further, during 1917 King George V sent 24 telegrams to congratulate everyone celebrating their 100th birthday. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II sent out 4,623 messages of congratulations. 2


The strategy for older people in England ‘Building A Society for All Ages’ (published in 2009) outlines the necessity for:


“A shift in attitude and behaviour across society so that old age is no longer perceived as a time of dependency and exclusion” 3


Everyone, including galleries and artists clearly have an important role to play in helping bring about that shift in attitude, through developing relevant and meaningful programmes that break down barriers to older people accessing the visual arts, but which also help challenge negative stereotypes of older people. Indeed, galleries are well placed to promote lifelong learning, participation and social inclusion, all leading to improved well-being and enhanced quality of life. The Wales Strategy for Older People recognizes:


“Social inclusion is a key element in the quality of life, health and well being of older people” 4


“Arts organisations working with older people as a specific group of active participants appears to be a recent phenomenon. It is hard to


discern activity before the 1970s when it seems to have been one aspect of a larger movement to draw different sections of society into the arts, sometimes described as the community arts movement.” 5


This is a challenge, but also an opportunity for galleries. Engage, the leading membership organization for gallery education in the UK exists to break down the barriers to galleries and the visual arts through projects, research, training, advocacy and publications.


Engage in Wales (engage Cymru) recently undertook a mapping report to ascertain levels of galleries and visual arts venues engaging with older people in Wales. It revealed that only 3% were proactively engaging with older people.


We subsequently embarked on a Wales-wide pilot research project involving six local authority and gallery partners to explore the role of galleries and artists in addressing key issues highlighted in the Strategy for Older People; and in particular access to informal lifelong learning


opportunities; combating social isolation and loneliness and increasing health and well-being, as well as increasing participation in cultural events.


The projects were funded through Arts Council of Wales, Millennium Stadium Charitable Trust and the local authorities, including Older People Strategy, Health and Well- Being and Lifelong Learning Directorates.


We worked in collaboration with Swansea; Ceredigion; Carmarthenshire; Rhondda Cynon Taf; Newport and Gwynedd. A ‘wish list’ was drawn up with each partnership to include each partners’ aims for the projects. The research questions for engage Cymru have been to explore what impact galleries and the visual arts can play in: > Adding to older peoples’ quality of life


> Helping to combat social isolation > Increase interaction between groups


> Increase health and well-being > Increase access to informal learning opportunities


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