Fermynwoods is commissioning artists Stand + Stare (Barney + Lucy Heywood) to produce to an interactive artwork for older people in Corby. This work will respond to the needs of the community by engaging and inspiring elderly individuals, some of whom suffer from social isolation as well as physical disadvantages.
The first event in this project will take place at Danesholme Community Centre, Corby, NN18 9EJ on Tuesday 14th November 2017, 7pm – 8.30pm.
All welcome, but please register your attendance at
art-memory.eventbrite.co.uk
OR
fermynwoods.org/in-public-spaces/live-stream
Who’s involved?
Stand + Stare work with technologists, academics, archivists and even cheesemakers. Always seeking to challenge convention and to tell a good story, they create automated experiences, often based on archive material, and immersive performances. Their work is characterized by a sense of warmth and nostalgia with particular attention given to the design.
Alison Ward is a Researcher at the University of Northampton, whose research interests are in the field of dementia and the use of creative activities to support wellbeing. Alison is undertaking her PhD on the use of photography and storytelling with people with dementia and is a trained TimeSlips storytelling facilitator. Alison supports a social club for people with young onset dementia and their carers, and is a Churchill Fellow 2015.
Fermynwoods has partnered with the Royal Voluntary Service to deliver this innovative and socially-engaged project. The Corby branch runs a Good Neighbours scheme in which befriending volunteers visit people in their homes across the Corby and Kettering areas. Their objective is to provide valuable company and friendship as well as making sure the older person is safe and well.
Befriending volunteers will be able to take a portable work of art into the homes of elderly people who would not normally be able to visit galleries or museums. The artwork will contain visual and audible material inspired by interviews with elderly residents as well as archival material. So that the outcome is accessible to residents with sensory impairments, it will be tactile as well as multi-sensory.
This artwork will be pledged indefinitely to RVS as a way to continually benefit the elderly community and to act as an interactive record of stories told by local people.
