Arts and care homes collaboration targets legacy for harnessing creative energies

Connecting care home residents to the arts is the focus of a new partnership between care home provider Anchor and London-based arts charity Magic Me.

By taking up residencies at four Anchor homes, each lasting between 3 and 6 months, a number of arts organisations will run performances for residents, staff and their families, as well as looking to collaborate on new artworks.

Susan Langford, director of Magic Me, comments: “We aim to channel the colour and excitement of the arts into care homes, tapping older people’s creative energies and latent talents, to make and present new artworks and performances, both for the care home community and a much wider audience. Because of frailty, dementia or low energy levels, older people in care homes just don’t get out to the theatre or arts events which many Londoners take for granted. We are thrilled to be working with these four arts partners and Anchor to bring the very highest quality arts to older people living in care homes.”

As the new approaches are trialled, those involved will document what works and why, in the hope that future generations can better understand how arts activities and performances impact positively on the lives of adults with care needs.

Debbie Sharples Kirkbride, Anchor’s customer engagement advisor, adds: “This creative partnership will not only bring enjoyment and new experiences, both within the care homes and in the wider community, but it will also provide our care staff with specialist knowledge and training. We hope this project will create a legacy of understanding about the delivery of the arts within a care setting, expelling the myth of what older people can achieve.”

Those involved include the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk, circus and aerial theatre company Upswing, performance and events collective Duckie, and performance artist and activist Lois Weaver. While funding is being provided by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.