The Dementia Friendly Creative Cafés were pop up cafés developed during my engagement with Bristol Museum & Art Gallery for people living with dementia and their carers and family members.
We invited people from across the city in collaboration with the charity Alive, Linkage and the Dementia Wellbeing Service (NHS, North Bristol).
At a creative café, we started by warmly welcoming participants to the museum. We then visited the galleries to see some of the museum collections and meet curators and visiting artists.
We engaged in lots of creative activities that encourage communication and new experiences. These included:
- costume and portrait photography in the galleries with artists, Kate Uzzell and Polly Garnett
- poetry and spoken word with Caleb Parkin
- music in the contemporary gallery with Ailsa Richardson
- colour and weaving
- experimental drawing with Freya Gabie inspired by the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition
We found there was a feeling of ‘a community with you’ arising in the Creative Cafes. One of the Front of House staff commented that it became like a warm welcoming club. Sometimes participants expressed feelings about their condition and about living with dementia. Sharing experiences led to a camaraderie and increasing confidence for members of the group.
We received valuable feedback. One word responses included: enchanting, cushty, awe-inspiring, inspirational, tender, friendly, beautiful, amusing, lovely.
Other comments:
- Thanks for such a beautiful workshop today it felt really special that so many family members were part of the workshop.
- These are experiences to be treasured. This work – what you are doing – is hugely beneficial.
- I enjoyed it all – can I come every week?
- The detail that the Old Masters could create was really surprising.
- I surprised myself – I wasn’t one for going to galleries and looking at paintings; I wasn’t sure about coming but I really enjoyed it.
- A lot of things aren’t as easy as they were (for mum) but this has been. It has been a joy for her to engage with the arts again and getting to know others. She is always looking forward to the sessions. Mother/daughter time.
- It’s a great programme and the participants are such interesting people.
- “The level of engagement was phenomenal round the table and in the gallery’ (Bristol Culture volunteer)
- ‘Very happy, I like drawing. It’s lovely, I’m relaxed.’(Participant)
- ”I feel really good – because I learned a lot from the exhibition and enjoyed the drawing experiment.” (Participant)
Read the full evaluation report
Read more at my Bristol Museum blog
