Schools Workshops
Dr Lizzie Burns, a science based artist, led a series of workshop with pupils from local secondary schools responding to work in the exhibition. One group looked at the brain and memory, making their own brain sculptures inspired by the work of Annie Cattrell. Another group made sculptures of cells in response to Andrew Carnie and Jennie Pedley's films.
11 July 2012
Art and Mind Symposium
Professor Tom Kirkwood, Associate Dean of Ageing, Newcastle University, spoke to a group of art, science and healthcare practitioners about the successes and challenges of increased life expectancy. To view the discussion please click either of the links below.
The long video (40 minutes) with guest comments towards end of the 40 minutes.
Short video (3 minutes)
12 July 2012
THE LONG RUN - LIFE IS A MARATHON : the science and art of ageing
7-8.30pm RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6EZ
The event is backed by the Institute for Ageing and co-hosted by the RSA in order to promote positive attitudes to issues around ageing and health throughout our lives.
Three senior scientists (Professor Tom Kirkwood, Professor Ian Deary and Professor Sarah Harper) will speak first on population and ageing research followed by a chaired panel discussion by three non-scientists including triple Olympian Simon Mason, which picks up on the science and brings the speakers' own experiences and insights to bear.
There will be a reception beforehand.
Booking through the RSA
www.thersa.org
Tel: (020) 7930 5115
general@rsa.org.uk
Listen to a podcast of the event here
18th June 2012
THE HUMAN JOURNEY - REFLECTIONS ON AGEING
A workshop for family and carers of those with dementia, bringing poetry to the process of ageing
2-4pm, GV ART, 49 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, London W1U 6LY
The workshop explored the many possible responses to ageing, both in ourselves and those we love and care for, John Killick, poet and founder of Dementia Positive, led a two-hour workshop building poetry out of our experience of caring for those with dementia, using artworks in Coming of Age as a creative stimulus, John Killick is also Poet in Residence for Older People, the Courtyard Theatre, Hereford, and Writer in Residence for Alzheimer Scotland.
Below are a number of poems produced during the workshop:
Waiting Room
There has been a recent celebration
This is a front room you don't go into
Smiling out to us, engaged and engaging
A lifetime of being mistaken for the other
Its all in the hands, or is it the eyes, my sister's eyes
But differences accumulate
What is the space between them – so near yet so far
One has a shortened gaze
Is the photograph a good or bad memory?
Who have they outlived?
Layers of knitted warmth but open-toed shoes
The ring fingers are bare
The picture is it sand or spume?
Anaglypta, wallpaper with memory loss
Drop leaf table like a coffin
Pink tissue box with blue Kleenex
Cut glass brain in vase with yellow ribbon
The sheepskin is the elephant in the room
But the carpet reflects the sky
Group poem by Karen Adams, Naomi Delap, Brian Garfield, Annabel Huxley, Judith Loose Julia Patton, Heather Ridge, Judi Sissons & led by John Killick
"Not scary, not pretentious… not difficult or full of awkward silences. Writing poetry in a group turned out to be rather straightforward, like an easy-to-follow recipe, genuinely collaborative, certainly inspirational. Perhaps surprisingly, the poems were rather good.
A small group of us were gathered at GV Art with the poet John Killick, who has made a life-time's career of forming poetry from the fading language of those with dementia - and giving it back to them.
Prompted by the shared experience of a painting, John gathers a group of people with dementia around, invites their responses and records them onto paper: sentences, words and phrases; impressions, questions and musings. There is something about the loss of language that leaves an essential residue. A list forms that begins to capture the vitality of this particular response to art. Then, with their input and permission, the list is re-shuffled and adjusted and a poem takes shape. In that moment, something new is made.. It reflects and sometimes reveals the lives and personalities of the people in the room.
These poems are posted up on the walls of nursing homes and hospitals, private rooms and carers' offices worldwide, wherever John has visited and showed them how easy it is to do, this poetry-making.
Once, one of his respondents had written something she was magnificently pleased with. She gathered all the staff in her nursing home together in front of the poem on her wall, and declaimed it from the top of a chair. What personality that took, from someone who thought they had lost it. And that's what John's work as a poet offers to those who have dementia: sharing their own poems with them 'helps them to see they are still there'.
This process works just as well, if for different reasons, with carers and families of those with dementia, and this was the point of the workshop at GV Art on the afternoon of Monday 18 June. We were a small group - writer, carer, nurse, lawyer, commissioner, psychotherapist and more - gathered together to consider some of the images in the Coming of Age exhibition, and to learn something powerful about group creativity. In response to Susie Rea's photographic print of Eileen and Gertrude, together we made this poem."
In response the following artwork: Eileen and Gertrude, Susie Rea, 2009, C-type print
My Father
This is my father, but not my father.
The mirror reflects time gone by.
Self contained and alone; no need of warmth.
Lumpy fingers and swollen feet, where
orthopaedic sandals have replaced a soldier's boots.
My mother made a blanket like this
in a time when nothing was wasted.
The tartan travel rug stays in place.
Francis Ridley's 'Reversal' is half read.
By Karen Adams and Heather Ridge
In response to; Kelvin, Susie Rea, 2009, C-type print
18th June 2012
Telling a life – the power of poetry
6-9pm, GV ART, 49 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, London W1U 6LY
A panel discussion, with readings by Valerie Laws, Sue Hubbard, and John Killick, chaired by Dr Hannah Zeilig, Research Fellow, Institute of Gerontology, Kings College London
19th June 2012
Drawing away the skin: the anatomy of Renaissance portraiture
A drawing master class led by artists Nina Sellars and Carla Bromhead
6 to 9 pm, £30 per student
This class presents portraiture as a way of seeing and aims to gain an understanding of what Leonardo da Vinci observed in his studies of the human head. Through a series of practical drawing exercises many of the underlying principles originating from Leonardo's study of anatomy, optics and perception are used to construct a portrait drawn from a life model. Participants at all levels are welcome to attend this class.
Nina Sellars lectures in Anatomical Drawing and is a trained Prosector (i.e. dissector of cadavers for medical display). Her artwork hybridizes the disciplines of art, science and humanities and focuses on the contemporary and historical influence of anatomy on our understanding of the body, identity and subjectivity. Classically trained in drawing her artwork now extends into multimedia light installations, as her interest in anatomy has taken her from working in wet anatomy labs to working in physics labs where she explores the cultural implications of modern medical imaging. GV Art gallery, London, represents Sellars and her work is exhibited nationally and internationally.
Carla Bromhead trained in Fine Art at Newcastle University, specializing in drawing and the history of art. Winning the Hole Editions Publishing Prize for her Degree Show Installation enabled Carla to collaborate in Lithography with Master Lithographer Lee Turner leading to exhibitions UK wide. Teaching art in multiple disciplines and to all ages has become a backbone to Carla's current practice, engaging in workshops and classes with children, adults and those with learning difficulties to use the tool of drawing as a method of expression and exploration.
The class will be held at GV ART, 49 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, London W1U 6LY, UK; www.gvart.co.uk. Booking is essential. Please book through GV Art by telephone: T : 020 8408 9800 or email: info@gvart.co.uk
