Co-creating resilience with people living with dementia: an intercorporeal approach to intergenerational arts
Chloe Bradwell
Friday
16:30 - 17:00
ONLINE
Short Presentation
This presentation considers how a creative process which focuses on a physical relationship can help facilitate resilient responses in the co-creation of meaningful relationships between participants living with and without dementia. Theorising a moment of process from intergenerational arts programme Reflections of Stepney (UK), I analyse how art facilitators help a child and care home resident to overcome the challenge of relating and create a performance together. I particularly consider the possibilities offered by touch as a way for participants to connect. I draw on Kontos et al.’s framework of relational citizenship (2017) which analyses the role played by subtle, non-verbal, behaviours as a way for people living with dementia to express themselves and thus actively build a relationship with others. This presentation draws from an article that I wrote for Research in Drama Education (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/13569783.2020.1841619?needAccess=true). It is based on my observation of the creative process and interviews conducted with artists and participants. This analysis also acknowledges my own embodied response to the creative process that is informed by my experience as a former activities manager and current drama practitioner in care homes.
Chloé Bradwell is a performing arts practitioner and current AHRC funded (South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership) PhD candidate at the University of Exeter and Aberystwyth University. Her PhD thesis explores the social and cultural value of performing arts with people living with dementia. Chloé aims to challenge discourses and representation of people living with dementia as being a burden to society and explores how the arts intervene in these negative discourses to re-value people living with dementia as individuals with non-typical cognitive function, who can be a social and cultural asset. Chloé has held the positions of activities manager and research associate in care homes and continues working as a freelance artist and consultant in dementia care. In 2017, Chloé was awarded a grant so that she could train with some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field of arts and dementia in the USA and became a certified TimeSlips facilitator. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chloé have been working with Entelechy Arts on a remote creative project which involves her making sensory cards that serve as a starting point for care home residents and staff to co-create stories during the period of lockdown.