A R O U N D T H E WO R L D
I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E
AG E I N G P R O J E C T S
by David Cutler

About the Baring Foundation

The Baring Foundation is an independent foundation seeking to advancehuman rights and promote inclusion. The Foundation has three programmes:
for international development in Africa; for social justice in the UK; andfor the arts in the UK. From 2010-2019 the Foundation’s arts programme
has focused on creative activity by older people. There are a number ofpublications from this programme on our website.
For more about the Foundation see A History of the Baring Foundationin 50 Grants.

About the author

David Cutler has been the Director of the Baring Foundation since 2003
and runs the Foundation’s Arts programme.

Acknowledgements

This publication has been edited by Harriet Lowe, the Baring Foundation’sCommunications and Research Officer. We are grateful for additional
material from Anthony Chan, Dominic Campbell, Isabel Lucena, Dr Tara Byne,
and the support of British Council East Asia staff, Ellie Gill Jones andKatelijn Verstraete. We would also like to thank all those who provided photos
for this publication.

About the cover image

The cover illustration was created by photographer Michal Iwanowski. Michal
is one of the artists in residence in care homes in the cARTrefu programme
supported by Arts Council Wales and the Baring Foundation and run by
Age Cymru.

Around the world in
80 creative ageing projects
by David Cutler

He was recommended
by Barings with whom he had
an open credit.
Jules Verne on Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days (1873).

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Ruth’s Table, USA.

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Contents

Foreword by Kate Arthurs

4

Introduction: A new creative age

7

Europe11

Ireland
The Netherlands
Germany
Belgium
SwedenFinlandDenmark
Portugal
Austria
Poland

12
15
20
24
25
26
29
30
31
32

The Anglophone world

33

USA
CanadaAustralia
New ZealandSouth Africa

34
40
41
44
46

Asia

47

Japan
TaiwanSouth Korea
Singapore
Hong Kong

48
53
56
58
59

Conclusion: An older and more creative world

61

Recommendations

64

Themed travel itineraries

65

Selected resources

68

4

T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NForewordby Kate Arthurs,
Director, Arts at the British Council
Age has undergone a re-brand. It’s not that the beauty industry has made peacewith the dreaded ‘fine line’, nor the food industry ceased to hail the arrival of a
new antioxidant solution. No. Globally, we are struggling to navigate our rapidly
ageing populations. Population ageing – the increasing of the median age of aregion due to rising life expectancy and/or declining fertility rates – is currently
at its highest level in human history.
At the British Council we are well placed to witness the social changes taking
place in the UK, and how they are mirrored overseas. Our ageing population isboth a challenge and an opportunity for the UK. Across the UK, expectationsof government, family and community with respect to older people are shifting.
Older people are increasingly being seen as our collective responsibility, deservingof inclusion by communities, friends and families, and a source of both labour andwisdom. Age is one of few common human experiences, enabling people to age
well is something we all have a stake in.
The values of equality, diversity and inclusion sit at the very heart of the British
Council’s cultural relations ambition, to build mutual trust and understanding
between the UK and peoples around the world. And these values are one lensthrough which we look at ageing. We recognise that negative perceptions ofdifference can be damaging. With stigmas of ageism and ableism prevailing– not to mention issues of age and isolation correlating positively, we need tofind a way to bring people together across the divides so often determined bydifference. In our experience arts are a crucial tool when seeking to connect those
who wouldn’t otherwise meet. Connecting, learning and partnering with those
who have more experience than us in this field is also critical if we are to find new
ways of addressing shared challenges.
Many countries in East Asia have rapidly ageing populations. The developed
economies of the region were among the first in the world to recognise its
social and economic impact. According to the World Health Organization, forexample, Taiwan entered the aged society in 19931 and in Japan 40 per cent of
the population will be over the age of 65 by 2025.2 It comes as no surprise thenthat much of our creative ageing work has East Asian roots, as many innovativemodels and progressive perspectives have come from this region. Here, we’veA R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

5learned much from the Baring Foundation’s approach: identifying a challenge andapproaching it with a tireless appetite to understand and catalyse sustainablechange. But the Baring Foundation hasn’t solely inspired us, we’ve also had theimmense pleasure of working with them in a range of important countries. In
Taiwan, their support has enabled us to build and grow a programme of work
focused on inclusion and creative ageing, spanning international delegations,workshops and conferences. In Japan, we’ve facilitated exchanges between the
UK, Japanese artists and arts organisations. And, in South Korea we’ve jointly
hosted the country’s first Creative Aging conference, uniting the two nations’arts, civic and health sectors to bring insight and expertise to this fledgling field.
I am proud of the work we have delivered in this field, and proud of the depth
and distinctiveness of experience we have been able to draw on from acrossIreland, Scotland and Wales. One recent project saw us connect leaders fromJapan’s flourishing creative ageing movement with representatives from Welsh
arts organisations as part of an Arts and Ageing UK Study Tour. As these
initiatives highlight, creating
opportunities to bring people
This new publication fromtogether – across continents
the Baring Foundation showcases as well as generations – to help
them see their commonalities cansome of the work the British
foster profound positive change.
Council has had the privilege to
Delivering work which has a strong
be involved in, as well as many
evidence base is important to us,
and there is clear evidence forother exciting examples fromthe arts’ capacity to support bothdifferent parts of the world.
physical and mental health benefits.
This new publication from the Baring Foundation showcases some of the work
the British Council has had the privilege to be involved in, as well as many otherexciting examples from different parts of the world. As population ageing appearson the horizon of more and more countries, I hope that we can continue to learn
from these experts and their approaches. Creative ageing is set to becomea central part of all our futures, and for many of us it will go on to support anessential sense of purpose and fulfilment. Let’s take this as a reminder not to see
age as anything other than an opportunity for further exploration, for expression,for exchange.

1 Y i-Yin Lin, PhD, Chin-Shan Huang, PhD; The Gerontologist, Volume 56, Issue 2. ‘Aging in Taiwan: Building
a Society for Active Aging and Aging in Place’. 2016.
2 W
 an He, Daniel Goodkind, and Paul Kowal; United States Census Bureau. ‘An Aging World: 2015,
International Population Reports’ 2016.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Rebel Yell, Bealtaine Festival, 2017. Photo: Eamonn O’Mahony. Courtesy of the Bealtaine Festival.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

7Introduction: A new creative age
H OW T H I S R E P O R T C A M E A B OU T
This report brings together in one place some of the wealth of work that we havediscovered outside the UK during our Arts and Older People programme.
The Baring Foundation’s arts programme is designed to benefit older people
in the UK who wish to express themselves though the arts. Old age is a fool’s
errand to define but we chose to fund work with people aged over 60 and thevast majority of activity we have funded has been with people aged 70 or over.
We have a particular focus on people who have not previously done this or who
have challenges to overcome such as living with dementia. The approach that
we have generally favoured has been participatory arts where a professionallytrained artist works with someone who has not had that training to facilitate andsupport their creativity. In most cases in creative ageing this has the added benefit
of being intergenerational with the artist coming from a different generation andforming a relationship of trust and solidarity.
So if this is a UK arts programme, why have we been so interested in what has
been happening outside the UK? Firstly, practice in the UK has been influenced
by work abroad, such as the replication and evolution of Meet Me at MoMA
(a visual arts programme developed for people living with dementia by theMuseum of Modern Art in Manhattan) and Dance with Parkinson’s which was
created down the road in Brooklyn by the Mark Morris Dance Company. Secondly,
we have a huge range of very developed work in the UK to offer in return andto refine through international exposure. Thirdly, the global population is ageing
and this creates a shared interest in creative ageing beyond national boundaries,
often especially among the fastest ageing societies such as Finland, Japan andSouth Korea.

T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L C A S E
F O R T H E A R T S I N L AT E R L I F E
We have funded our Arts and Older people programme as an expression of
our belief in the fundamental human right of everyone to enjoy the arts andparticipate in the culture of their community as recognised in Article 27 of8

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the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right should not change with age
or physical or cognitive condition. But this conviction does not obscure for us themany benefits of involvement in the arts in older age. These were summarised inan early publication commissioned by us from the Mental Health Foundation.1
Regarding mental wellbeing:‘Increased confidence and self-esteem were perceived benefits.’
As with physical wellbeing:‘Particular art forms may lend themselves more than others
to significant physical health improvements.’
At a community level:‘There is clear evidence that participatory arts programmes
provide opportunities for meaningful social contact, friendshipand support.’
And finally at a societal level:‘Large scale, high profile festivals have the potential to positivelytransform attitudes to older people.’
All facts which are obvious to us all. Almost ten years on the academic evidencebase for these claims has increased greatly. Everything that we have seen
leads us to believe that this would be as true in Cancun, Colorado or Chennai
as in Colchester. Indeed the landmark study in this field comes from the USA.
Published in The Gerontologist (Vol 46, no 6, pages 726–734), the study
followed 300 subjects with a median age of 80. One group was involved inarts programmes and the control group was not. The study suggested thatinvolvement in the arts led to better health, fewer visits from doctors, lessmedication, increased physical activity and social engagement. This led to theclaim that such programmes could result in a reduction of $6.3 billion dollars
at that time to the US public purse.

1 An Evidence Review of the Impact of Participatory Arts on Older People, Mental Health Foundation, 2011.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

9O U R I N T E R N AT I O N A L E X C H A N G E S
We have been fortunate in the three main partnerships which have supported ourinternational exchanges.
Firstly, and most importantly, we had the great good fortune to have a concurrent
interest in this field with the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (WCMT). In 2010
they decided for the first time to support a five-year programme of travelling
fellowships and to choose arts and older people as the topic. WCMT fully funded
the trips. These allowed the lucky recipients an opportunity to travel for aroundsix weeks to research practice abroad. This resulted in 47 fellowships worth
around £300,000. On our side we were able to promote the results of theirresearch and in some cases to support subsequent developmental activity in the
UK. All the reports by fellows can be found on the WMCT website and a synthesisof some of their themes in Growing the Creative Ageing Movement: International
lessons for the UK (2017) by Alice Thwaite.
The second partnership came as the result of an approach from colleagues infoundations in the Netherlands. This developed into a four country partnership
involving ibkkubia in Germany, the Flemish Culture Ministry in Belgium, a numberof Dutch foundations, the Dutch Arts Council and ourselves. Called Long Live
Arts (‘Lang Leve Kunst’) we kicked off the project with a London seminar in 2014
and there followed multiple exchanges leading to a magnificent conference in The
Hague in 2016, including a royal performance of creative ageing performances in
the presence of the former Queen of the Netherlands. More can be found about
the project in Long Live the Arts Manifesto – Feel the Arts.
I was so impressed by what I saw in the Netherlands that I went back and did
more research in order to write a short report Dutch Old Masters and Mistresses– Creative Ageing in the Netherlands (2017). Similarly my colleague Harriet Lowe
was kindly hosted by Kubia in Germany and wrote Creative Ageing in Germany:
A view from North Rhine–Westphalia (2017). This project had a second wind in
the form of a further partnership with the Dutch Arts Council for Participation,
where we jointly funded exchanges between age-friendly culture cities in the UK
and the Netherlands in 2017 and 2018.
Lastly, and supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s UK branch, in2015 we partnered with the British Council to co-fund a Japanese exchange.
The opportunity to observe and learn from Japan’s approach to ageing was socompelling that I wrote an account of the trip: Living National Treasure: Creative
Ageing in Japan. We went on to fund two further waves of exchange with the
British Council, collaboratively enabling visits to Japan, Taiwan, South Korea andChina. Although the investments were modest, the impact of these exchanges

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

is enduring, giving rise to new developments in multiple countries, and ongoinginternational partnerships with arts organisations in the UK such as EntelechyArts, Manchester Camerata, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Sadler’s Wells.

T H E S C O P E O F T H I S R E P O R T. . .
Unfortunately the spread of projects reported in each country is uneven. This is
not a reliable indication of the quantity of work taking place, just on our accessto examples. A series of very brief examples are given for each country andwhere possible a little national context. These are interspersed with seven casestudies which I believe are especially significant (the Seven Wonders of theCreative Ageing World!). No examples are drawn from the UK, but the Foundation
has published a number of reports highlighting work here, some of which are
mentioned at the end of this report under Resources.

. . . A N D I T S L I M I TAT I O N SThis report is far from an intensive, systematic study. By and large, it is work
which we have come across through the international exchanges which we havesupported. We have expanded on this a little through our contacts and throughdesk research. A very real constraint therefore has been the author’s lack offluency outside the English language. Other than in the Netherlands, it is rare forwork to be translated, so this is far more of an Anglophone report than I would
have wished. It should in no way imply that there is not relevant work, especiallyin Southern and Eastern Europe, it is simply beyond my resources to access it.
Therefore this is a very partial account, but still, I believe, filled with treasures.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

11EuropeAbair/Samaa, an intercultural choral performance featuring the Kilcock Men’s Shed Choir andFarah Elle, commissioned by the Bealtaine Festival, 2019. Photo: Jeda de Brí. Courtesy of the Bealtaine Festival.

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IrelandI F I WA S T H E P H I L E A S F O G G O F C R E AT I V E A G E I N G ,I W O U L D D E F I N I T E LY B E S TA R T I N G M Y J O U R N E Y
IN DUBLIN.
An invitation by Dominic Campbell in 2009, the then Director of Bealtaine (04),to the annual month long festival of creative ageing in Ireland so inspired methat I pitched the idea to do a sister festival to Creative Scotland and we joined
forces in 2012 to commission just such a festival under the name of Luminate.

01 Uillinn
Uillinn, the West Cork Arts Centre has run many arts and older people projects.
A recent example has been Stories from the Well-field, an interactive performancewith participants from St Joseph’s Ward, Bantry hospital. They wrote poems
about childhood friends to include in a new work set in a raucous village fair, using
puppetry and original music.

02 Waterford Healing Arts
Waterford Healing Arts based at the University Hospital Waterford wasestablished in 1993 as an arts and health project working in varied locations
including bringing arts to a patient’s bedside in hospital. The charity works acrossart forms with particular strengths in music and visual arts and across ages, butwith many service users in later life.

03 St James’s Hospital
St James’s Hospital in Dublin is the home to the Mercer’s Institute for Successful
Ageing. One of its four strands is the Creative Life programme begun in 2017.
The programme is available to older patients and their families and friends as wellas the staff caring for them. Art forms include drama, music, poetry sculpture andvisual arts. Activities include a choir and the Making Hay Reminiscence Theatre,
as well as outreach activities including to the National Gallery of Ireland.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

1304 Age and Opportunity and the Bealtaine Festival
Established in 1995 and hosted in the Irish national older people’s organisation
Age and Opportunity, Bealtaine has had an influence far beyond Ireland, including
inspiring sister festivals in Wales, Finland, Northern Ireland and England as wellas Scotland.
Bealtaine means Spring in Gaelic and has continued to take place across Irelandthroughout the whole of May from its inception. The festival operates two
strands: a strategic centrally set programme and a local voluntary programme
benefiting from 1,000s of activities across the country under the Bealtaine
banner. The scale and reach of the festival is deeply impressive with at least
500 events involving around 100,000 people each May. Highlights from the 2019
festival included:– A Dawn Chorus on the banks of the Barrow in Carlow town and a Dusk Chorus
in Temple Bar led by the Aspiro Choir;– The tenth anniversary of the Blow the Dust Orchestra, a scratch orchestraof older musicians who meet regularly to play in Ireland’s National Concert Hall;– Dancing through the Door, a piece of dance theatre and participatory
performance with CoisCéim Broadreach dance company and based on thefestival’s theme of hospitality;– Abair/Saama, a newly commissioned intercultural and intergenerational choral
performance by Kilcock Men’s Shed Choir and Libyan singer Farah Elle;– Ageing Provocateur, a social media initiative to generate debate about ageing
and creativity through short written provocations by various artists;– Liminal States, two late evening live performances created in response to thefestival’s theme of hospitality and respectively taking place in a Waterford
lighthouse coinciding with the full moon and a church in Waterford City;– Strength in Numbers, a Bicycle Gang with its own unique style and gang codes
led by a group older people from Dublin descends on the city;– Bealtaine @ Temple Bar, an intergenerational series of family events aroundTemple Bar culminating in a promenading pop-up opera by Nick Roth.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NDancing through the Door – a work in progress sharing of a new commission by CoisCéim BROADREACH,
for the Bealtaine Festival, 2019/2020. Photo: Rob O’Connor. Courtesy of the Bealtaine Festival.

An extremely positive study of Bealtaine was published by the Irish Centre forSocial Gerontology in 2009 which concluded that the Festival had had a ‘profoundand visible effect on arts practice at the national and local level’.
Beyond Bealtaine, Age and Opportunity has developed a number of other initiatives:– A network of ‘cultural companions’, older people who can accompany andsupport each other in taking part in arts activities;– A series of artist’s residencies set in care settings around Ireland;– Professional training for older artists;– A zure is a collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society and several galleries
to enhance the experience of people living with dementia around visual arts;– Accredited training for activity coordinators in care homes on arts andcultural activities.
Given such success and endurance, it would be easy to forget that Bealtaine wasborn in a boom economy and has had to survive a period of great austerity in
Ireland’s public expenditure.
There is no doubt that Bealtaine has served as an engine in developing adiverse, mature and confident creative ageing sector in the Republic. Arts andOlder People is specifically identified as an area for support by the Arts Councilof Ireland.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

15The Netherlands
An academic study in 2004 claimed that the Netherlands was the best country in
the world at looking after its older citizens. It is certainly true that the Netherlands
spends much more per head on social care than the UK (though this has beensomewhat squeezed by a period of public austerity) and is known for a series ofinnovations in social care such as a specialist retirement village for people livingwith dementia called De Hogeweyk where one of the seven distinctive styles of
housing is ‘cultureel’ for people with an interest in theatre and cinema.

05 Age-Friendly Culture Cities
The Netherlands also feels familiar to someone from Britain in its approach to thearts with a strong tradition of participative arts and a highly active specialist Arts
Council for the field called the FCP (Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie). The Baring
Foundation has worked very productively with the FCP through the Long Live
Arts Collaboration and we were delighted when they used work in Manchester
as the inspiration for their new funding programme giving grants to Age-Friendly
Culture Cities. The programme is running between 2017 and 2020 and works
with municipalities and cultural organisations to ensure that creative ageing
is a sustainable part of local arts and welfare policy. Three successive funding
rounds give awards to between five and seven cities. An application needs toembed work within a broader plan of action by the city in order to be awarded
40,000 euros. Assessment visits lead on to an additional extra prize each yearof 20,000 euros. The programme is building a network of good practice among
the participating cities.

06 Music Generations
Music Generations was founded in 2001 by Conny Groot when Rotterdam
was European Capital of Culture. She built an organisation on the principles ofintergenerational and intercultural exchange and solidarity. She brings together
recent young migrants with older people who were born in the Netherlands.
Their repertoire is varied but includes rap and hip hop. Since 2001 the group has
worked with over 2,000 people and musicians are drawn from academies acrossthe country.

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07 Care & Culture
Care & Culture was started in 2012 by serial social entrepreneur Margreet Melman.
Using a professional choir master and musicians, the company creates a bespokemusical programme in a care home or a day centre called the Care & Culture Choir.
The programme is intergenerational and care is taken in supporting a class ofprimary school children over a term, leading up to a show involving family andfriends. There is an added bonus that the children gain a term of music tuition.

08 PRA Muziektheater
PRA Muziektheater is run by artistic director Monique Masselink. Two dance
projects have been created and performed in over 75 care homes. One project, Look
into My Eyes, brings together primary school children with care home residents
and the other, Simple Desires, brings together dance students with residents. Each
programme also uses professional dancers and musicians. Masselink stated thatolder people in care homes often need to be touched tenderly rather than clinically,something she describes as ‘skin hunger’, a need which dance can meet.

09 Foundation for Arts in Care
The Foundation for Arts in Care (Stichting Kunst in de Zorg) was founded in2008 by artist and cultural entrepreneur, Vera Boos. She was driven to create thecharity on the basis of her family’s experience of residential care. Since then over
40 projects have been delivered. Half of these have been using Zona’s Kiosk. This
resembles a travelling caravan, arriving in the care home with up to 16 artists
skilled in different participatory art forms. Over a period of weeks a unique workof art or performance is created in each care home.

10 Museum for 1 Day
Museum for 1 Day (MV1D) takes museum collections into care homes. It wasestablished in 2015 by Angela Manders and Marlies Juffermans. The Museum
works with two groups of people: frail older people who can no longer visit a
museum and active older people who act as volunteers and who receive training
about a specific collection as well as in presentation skills. Museums are places
where objects can stimulate curiosity and the senses. In this case they also
provide older people with the opportunity to recognise and reminisce.

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17

11 SMAAK Foundation
The SMAAK Foundation in Amersfoort was established in 2015 to champion
creative ageing. One of the main projects for SMAAK has been setting up Pop-Up
Museums. These are curated by older people with a new theme each year. In 2017
the theme was abstract art with a strand of work called ‘art against loneliness’
where ten artists sent weekly postcards to people in care homes after forming
relationships with them. The Foundation has formed a relationship with Gallery
Oldham in the UK.

12 Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum has been leading a collaboration for several years called
Kunst maakt de mens – ouduren outmoeten Van Gogh (‘Arts maketh the man– older people meet van Gogh’).This draws inspiration form the life and work of
van Gogh to run workshops in care homes led by professional artists. Over 1,000
people participated in six different areas of the country with a link to the artist’slife. A two year-long research study into the project’s impact has been published.

13 Gekleurd Grijs
Festivals are also a way of bringing attention to creative ageing by working acrossart forms. The province of Drenthe now celebrates Gekleurd Grijs (Coloured
Grey) across April. A series of events are held in galleries, museums, community
centres and care homes, involving a variety of organisations. Two artists inresidence were commissioned to work with older people. In one case this resulted
in a dance piece created with residents in a care home.

14 Gruitpoort
Arts centres can provide a splendid focus for creative ageing programmes andthis is definitely the case for Gruitpoort in Doetinchem. The centre includes
a theatre and a cinema. It has embraced the Long Live Arts programme as anopportunity to broaden its appeal to older people working with a number of local
partners. This has resulted in a multi-pronged programme going to 30 locations,based around training over 100 volunteers and involving local school students.
Projects have included singing in care homes and the ‘telephone reading service’
giving live readings straight to your armchair.

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15 Wintertuin: Platform for the Elderly and their Stories
Vitalis, a major care home provider, and a literary production agency Wintertuin,
which publishes books as well as running a number of literary festivals, havejoined forces for a programme called Platform for the Elderly and their Stories.
The programme is led by the Maiike Mul, Arts Coordinator, a dedicated post at
Vitalis, and Noortje Kessels at Wintertuin.
The programme has a number of components. Called The House of Stories,
creative writing classes take place over a year with residents. The programme’s
strapline is ‘Prose instead of Prozac’. This is seen as a talent development initiative
for writers in their 80s and over. They are given younger mentors who areexperienced published writers. Great attention is paid to stimulating memories,
using photographs, objects and even smells. The work takes place in a speciallystaged room to create a pre-war living room. The stories are published in a
printed volume, as well as a version online. Podcasts are also made of the stories.
Care is taken to present this well and the authors are professionally photographedin the same way as a commercially published writer would be. They are also given
training in how to present their writings and stories to an audience.
Another component is the cleverly titled Large Type Festival (Groot Letter
Festival). There is no obvious equivalent as yet in the UK. There have been two
editions of the festival in care homes in Eindhoven and the 2019 edition wasin Rotterdam. Famous writers spend the day at the care home performing forthe same kind of glamorous literary festival you might find anywhere in the
Netherlands. Music and other entertainments are also on offer. The festival
is intergenerational, with a number of young children participating. The
programme was amazingly diverse. As well as readings, there were sessions
where participants could imagine different ways of being married for a day,with a local registrar to officiate, temporary literary tattoos, and in the culturalpharmacy literary advisers in white coats wearing stethoscopes would write
you a prescription for your literary ailments.
Another initiative has been Q and A with the Grey. Here older people set up
their stall at a literary festival and people can come and ask them any questions
they like about getting older – a little like the Living Library initiative in the UK
and elsewhere.

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S

Finally, the Writer in the House programme places writers literally in residence
in a care home for a month (rather than say weekly workshops, which are often
referred to as residencies). Writers Willem Claassen and Maartje Wortel bothstayed a few weeks in a nursing home. Maartje wrote in the newspaper, Trouw:

The longer I stay at home, the more I find out that the elderly
are almost no different from my peers.

Groot Letter (Large Type Festival). Photo © Vincent van den Hoogen.

19

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Germany
Germany has much in common with other North European countries regarding
the shape of demographic change. It has been experimenting with different
approaches to social care such as cohabitation models of mutual support
like Amaryllis in Bonn or intergenerational social support centres called
Multigenerational Houses.
But what sets Germany apart when it comes to creative ageing is its emphasison training and professionalisation of the arts offered to older people. This is
in tune with a more general approach to work with older people, as in Finland.
This is best exemplified by the organisation Kubia in North Rhine-Westphalia (18).
In general there is a huge amount of high-quality work on creative ageing inGermany which deserves to better known internationally.

16 Altentheater
Altentheater in Cologne can lay claim to being a world pioneer in creative ageing.
Founded in 1979 by Ingrid Berzau and Dieter Scholz, it is part of the Freies
Werkstatt theatre that started a few years before. Actors range in age from their
mid-sixties to mid-nineties. Performances are co-created with them, reflecting
current life as well as the actors’ personal histories and journey through ageing.
The ensemble has performed all over Germany and beyond, organising the firstworld festival of older people’s theatre in 1999 with 250 participants attending
from four continents.

17 Art for CareArt for Care was set up in Essen by visual artist Evelyn Duerschlag. She goes
into care homes and works with residents to create intricate wall murals. These
are often of local landmarks and are deliberately designed to look how residents
would have known them in their youth. An example in Essen is a mural of aconcert hall where The Beatles played in 1966. The murals will often include
cameo appearances by the residents. In this process of joyful co-creation Evelyn
will also work with care home staff as well as residents.

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18 Kubia
A unique feature of the arts and older people scene in North Rhine-Westphalia
and in Germany is the Centre of Competence for Creative Ageing and Inclusive
Arts (kubia).
kubia is a training and information institution for Kulturgeragogik or ‘culturalgerontology’. kubia, together with the University of Applied Sciences in Münster,has been instrumental in efforts to build Kulturgeragogik as a professional andan academic discipline. It emerged from the strong belief that pedagogy (theoryof learning) is linguistically and in practice inextricably linked to children’s learningand there needed to be ways of working better suited to the lives, experiences,capabilities and interests of older people.
kubia runs a wide range of short workshops and webinars for professionals,
amounting to about 14 a year attracting a total of around 200 people. The topics
covered are very varied – its 2017 schedule, for example, included using video
in storytelling with older people, leading an older people’s choir, moderating astorytelling café, and using humour with people with dementia. The workshops
are intended to be very practical and give something people can take back totheir work. They are run by practitioners and are designed to be opportunities
to exchange experiences and ideas.
kubia and the University at Münster together offer a year-long professional
qualification in Kulturgeragogik . Participants on this course come from social
care, from the arts, and from local and regional authorities (often people incultural sphere who want to widen their public programmes to include older
people). The course is part-time, achievable alongside employment, and involvesa practical project and a viva at the end of the course.
The university planned to offer a Masters course from 2018.
As well as training, kubia manages the funding provided by the Ministry,
dispensing funds for innovative projects around the state. It also conducts
research and tries to identify gaps in provision. For example, noting that older
people’s theatre groups are largely female and need performance material forlarge casts but that there was a lack of contemporary writing that met thesecriteria, it funded a competition for aspiring scriptwriters challenging themto fill the gap.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

kubia also acts as an information hub and promoter of good practice, for example,
running ‘action days’ where funded projects can meet, present their work andexchange ideas. Its long-running Theatergold (Theatre Gold) programme runsa biennial theatre festival WILDwest for older people’s theatre in the region –with productions, workshops and seminars. Its website provides a calendar of
relevant events for older people and for professionals and its well-produced
magazine offers both inspiration and good practice.

Art for Care project. Photo © Evelyn Duerschlag.

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23

19 Lehmbruck Museum
The Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg was the first in Germany to offer tours
for people living with dementia in 2006. This led them to run a research project
into effective models of art appreciation which resulted in a training workshop
offering a qualification to tour guides. This has been rolled out to museums acrossGermany. A second initiative of older volunteers or artlovers (‘artgenossen’)emerged from a project with primary school children called Hey Alter! This groupis now a permanent asset to the museum developing their own projects such asa visitor’s audio guide to the collection offering the perspectives of old and young
people on the same objects.

20 Atelier D (Studio D)
Atelier D (Studio D) is a regular art workshop for people with dementia.
It was the brainchild of, and is run by, Corinna Bernshaus, a ceramic artist.
She and fellow artist Uscha Urbainski both have their own studios in the
Kunstschule Werksetzen, an ‘art school’ where they do their own work as wellas run the sessions. People with dementia attend usually with a relative or carer– there is normally no specific theme but they can use the materials there to dowhat they feel inspired to do. Atelier D is a separate room, offering a quiet retreat,but participants can mingle with whatever activities are going on in the main
room as well.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Belgium

21 Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom is a Belgian contemporary dance company with an international
reputation. Set up in 2000 much of its work has been around the theme of ageing
and the family. It describes its style as hyper-realistic with concrete locations
mixing with fantasy. Vader, the first part of a trilogy of works, is set in a carehome and spawned a co-production, Third Act, with a documentary film company
working with older actors looking at care settings.

22 Fonton
Fonton in Bruges is a centre for expertise on living with dementia. Its local
campaign has been credited with making Bruges the most dementia-friendly
city in the world. It has many aspects with an emphasis on the commercial sector
becoming dementia friendly and displaying the knotted handkerchief symbolin shop windows. Public and private firms have undertaken dementia-friendly
training. This has included the wealth of heritage and culture centres in Bruges,
as well as a dementia choir and dance initiatives.

23 Sering
Sering is a socially engaged theatre based in Antwerp and created by actress
Mia Grijp. Much of its work is participatory and international. A major project for
the theatre, the World Carousel, began with a piece of work Eerste Liefde - First
Love - Primer Amor, bringing together older people in Antwerp, the Bronx in the
USA and Villa El Salvador in Peru. The piece was co-created with the older people
and professional actors. The audience is taken back to the first loves of the older
people on stage.

24 Art For Dementia
The Art For Dementia project was founded and is run by artist and architect
Barbara Luel. The inspiration for the project was her experience of her
grandmother living with dementia, especially around communication difficulties.
After this she became aware of arts workshops run in care homes by Bert Vervaet
and began to run classes herself in her home town of Leuven.

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25

Sweden25 Etnografiska Museet (Ethnographical Museum)
The Etnografiska Museet (Ethnographical Museum) in Stockholm like many
galleries and museums worldwide has been influenced by the Meet Me at MoMA
programme for people living with dementia. They have created Moten med
minnen (‘Meetings with Memories’), which has been funded by the Swedish
Postcode Lottery and a number of dementia charities. Tours are for roughly
15 people living with dementia and their carers and last around 90 minutes.
They take place on Mondays when the Museum is otherwise closed. The trained
guides try to find ‘hooks’ to the objects to stimulate the memories of participants.

26 Skånes DansteaterSkånes Dansteater in Malmö is one of a number of dance companies as well as
individual dancers and choreographers that have benefitted from the approachdeveloped by the Mark Morris Dance Company to deliver Dance for Parkinson’s.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NFinlandFinland has the fastest ageing population in Europe as well as being renowned
throughout the world for its progressive social policies. Creative ageing is no
exception. Although, as in many countries, budgets are being cut, welfare andcultural spending remain relatively high. An important factor in Finland has been
the merging of health and social care budgets for some time and the opportunities
which this provides. For instance in Helsinki there has been a joint post for almosta decade serving arts and health. There is also an emphasis on higher educationand professional qualifications in all jobs including in social care.

27 Armas
A new national creative ageing festival stepped out in 2018. Armas took placeacross Finland to mark one hundred years of independence. It was the hard won
creation of Raisa Karttunen who drew inspiration from the Luminate festival in
Scotland. The festival took place over two weeks with a huge variety of around
250 events. There was a beer tasting session combined with the music of
The Beatles, guided tours of the National Art Gallery by current and retired staff,
a photography project at the iconic Finlandia Hall curated by people living in acare home, and a performance by an older people’s choir organised by the Miina
Sillanpää Foundation which provides services for older people.

28 AaliArmas roughly translates as an affectionate name for an old man, and he has asister in Aali (similarly ‘darling’) which is the name for the national network forarts based elderly care, a network of 13 towns and cities across the country witha national coordinator.

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27

29 Musiikkitalo
Musiikkitalo or the Helsinki Music House is a new state-of-the-art concert houseand home to two of Finland’s 30 orchestras. It takes part in the city of Helsinki’s
Cultural Companions scheme with free tickets for someone to take a companion
to an event, which is often used by older people. So are the regular freerehearsals. The Music House often streams its concerts and these are sometimes
streamed directly to care homes. On top of all this, members of the orchestra
frequently volunteer to play live in care homes in small ensembles.

Opening event at the Armas Creative Ageing Festival, Finland, October 2017.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

30 Comprehensive Service Centres
These city-owned, local community centres in Helsinki provide services for botholder people and for unemployed people. They combine residential units withnursing care, including for people with dementia, with a range of facilities forthe local community. In some centres at least these are to a very high standard,
modern and attractive.
Kinapori Centre is led by a manager with an arts degree and was re-launchedby the Minister for Culture in 2012. It has very well-equipped workshops for
textiles, ceramics and metal working, as well as a gym and swimming pool anda large theatre and auditorium which is used, among other things for tea dances
twice a week. The restaurant and library are used by the local community as well
as residents.
Roihuvuori Centre also has a welcoming library at its entrance and communal
restaurant. All Finnish public buildings must have a bomb shelter and theirs has
been put to creative use with a multi-sensory room, art exhibitions on the walls
and storytelling sessions. An artist who is also a nurse has created an installationof beautifully woven colourful fabrics falling as ropes from high windows, alluding
to a Finnish folk tale similar to Rapunzel called ‘I am still waiting’. Day care users
can enjoy a range of arts events, for instance a classical guitar concert interwoven
with relaxed conversation with the audience about the pieces.

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29Denmark

31 CoreAct
CoreAct was formed in 2006 by theatre-makers Anika Barkan and Helene Kvint.
They take their work to many different types of spaces, including theatres, butthey have run a number of arts events in care homes and nursing homes. Theirproject Rolling Rooms uses interactive drama and scenery to stimulate memories
and the senses. Working in 14 care homes they have collected the individual life
stories of over 300 residents which have then been combined with an individual
soundscape created by a sound artist.

32 Old Town Museum (Den Gamle By)
The Old Town Museum (Den Gamle By) in Aarhus has created a ‘remembrance
apartment’ decorated in the style of 1950s Danish interior décor (doubtless more
stylish than British). The apartment is sometimes open to the public as part of themuseum but often it is used for courses and visits by people living with dementia.
Somewhat similar to Kitanagoya-shi Historical Museum (68) in Japan, thisapproach is being experimented with in Sweden and Norway too.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NPortugal

33 Trupe Sénior
Trupe Sénior aims to promote and increase the participation of older peoplein public and performing spaces. It is an award-winning initiative created in2016 by Portugal’s most respected and established circus school (‘Chapitô’)and receives funding from Lisbon’s City Council. All the technique developedby the participants in circus, dance, music and theatre is used to support theirself-expression (as individuals as well as a troupe) and claim their right to fullcitizenship. The troupe performs regularly in events all over the country.

34 Companhia Maior
Companhia Maior is a company composed of older/retired people with aprofessional background in the arts and media (former actors, dancers, radio
professionals, etc) who wouldn’t otherwise be able to use their skills and havea fulfilling life. The company was formed 10 years ago, inspired by (Portuguese
choreographer) Clara Andermatt’s experience of working with the Companyof Elders at Sadler’s Wells. The company is resident at the Belem Cultural Centre(CCB) and receives funding from the City Council and a few other sources.
The average age of its participants is currently 75. It is a multidisciplinary
performing arts project whose work results in a contemporary hybrid of theatre,
dance and music. An annual production (original work or the adaptation ofa classic) is developed in collaboration with the most distinguished directors
and choreographers from younger generations. The company performs at
the CCB and other venues in Lisbon and across Portugal, with occasional
international performances.

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31Austria

35 Demenz Kunst Gesellschaft (DAS Dementia Arts Society)
Demenz Kunst Gesellschaft (DAS Dementia Arts Society) is an arts based
research project based at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. It combines
experts from the fields of the arts, design, health care and urbanism and works
nationally and internationally. It includes projects to change the perception of
the general population regarding people living with dementia and artistic sensory
workshops for those with lived experience.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NPoland36 Regional Social Policy Centre in Poznan
The Regional Social Policy Centre in Poznan ran a campaign against the social
exclusion of older people in 2012. Called ‘Life is Passion’, it had a strong emphasison the arts and included TV commercials of older people in Poznan expressing
their artistic passions and a series of billboards across the city with similar images.

37 Seniors Take Action
Seniors Take Action is an project led by the Association of Creative Initiatives,a national umbrella organisation, and several collaborators. It was primarily agrants programme with a number of aims including encouraging intergenerational
artistic activity, promoting volunteering by older people, and challenging
stereotypes of ageing.

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The Anglophone world

Young@Heart Chorus, USA. Photo © Lucienne van der Mijle.

33

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

USAThe USA has been influential internationally in the development of creative
ageing. Dr Gene Cohen conducted a landmark study into the health benefitsof participatory arts in older people, in 2001 publishing The Creative Age:
Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life. Along with Susan
Perlstein from Elders Share the Arts (39), he established the National Centerfor Creative Aging at George Washington University in Washington DC. Some
programmes described below, such as Meet Me at MoMA and Timeslips, havebeen widely replicated elsewhere, including in the UK.
Met Life Insurance for a period was an important source of targeted funding,including for awards for good practice. When this stopped to some extent Aroha
Philanthropies took up the baton through one of its three funding streams called
Vitality Arts. The Obama Administration also held a National Summit on Creativity
and Aging in Washington DC in 2016 organised by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
However in an era of very low public investment in the arts and great pressureson philanthropy, the arts organisations developing these projects have often
struggled for funding.

38 Timeslips
Timeslips was created by academic and arts practitioner Anne Basting in 1998.
Starting in Milwaukee, it has spread worldwide. Its purpose is ‘to bring meaning
to later life through creative engagement’. Its central approach is simple andeffective. Normally in a care setting a trained facilitator offers a photograph orimage to a group of older people as a spark to ignite their creativity. Sensory
questions are asked such as ‘what do you think that food would taste like?’.
These are then gathered into a written narrative, that is expressive, often
humorous but also revealing about the lives and characters of the participants.
An important aspect of Timeslips is that it does not press people to remember
facts or experiences when they may have trouble with their memories. Instead
it relies on their unimpaired creative capacity in the moment.

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35

39 Elders Share the Arts (ESTA)
Unusually I want to include an organisation which sadly closed in 2018. Elders
Share the Arts (ESTA) began in 1979 when Susan Perlstein started a single
living history workshop. This grew to cover care homes in the Bronx and went
on to care homes across New York City. ESTA believed that ‘Living History’, howolder people are bearers of culture and history, should be central to its approach.
For many years it ran an elders story telling group called Pearls of Wisdom.
Founded on theatre and storytelling it expanded into other art forms and training.

40 Stagebridge
Stagebridge, founded a year before ESTA by Dr Stuart Kendall in Oakland
California, is thankfully still in robust health. Its aim is to transform the lives ofolder adults through the performing arts, describing itself as a theatre company‘for and by’ older people. Stagebridge reaches 25,000 people annually througharound 600 workshops and entertainment. It runs professionally taught actingclasses for people over 50 years of age. Its Seniors Reaching Out initiative works
in a wide variety of community venues.

41 IONA Services
Established in 1975, IONA Services is based in Washington DC where it runs
a range of services for older people, their families and carers. These include carehomes and day services. It has built a deservedly high reputation in its use of thearts for older people. Some of these activities are located in their Wellness andArts Centre. Each year an older person is artist in residence at IONA including
staging an exhibition as well as workshops and talks.

42 Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend
Begun shortly after the abolition of slavery the Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend areconsidered an important part of American art and heritage. Drawing on African
textile patterns, quilters were taught techniques as part of their culture in the
Rehoboth and Boykin areas of the Alabama River. The upward facing quilt top
is a highly personal artistic expression, made while working alone. Today thequilters are almost entirely older local women of colour and quilts are available
for purchase and in museums collections.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

43 Ruth’s Table
Ruth’s Table in San Francisco was founded in 2009. Its aim is to give creative
opportunities to older people and people with disabilities. Most of its participants
are on a low income and 85 per cent are immigrants. There is a range of classes
on offer mainly around the visual arts, crafts and movement. Ruth’s Table also
runs regular exhibitions and collaborates with a range of partners including local
schools and universities.

44 Lifetime Arts
At a strategic level, Lifetime Arts, based in New York, has been created toconnect people, funding and strategies to increase the quality and quantity ofcreative ageing programmes across the country. It already offers a wide rangeof online resources and in-person courses which will be supplemented in 2020
by a new online course.

Ruth’s Table, USA.

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37

45 Dance for PD
Dance for PD (Parkinson’s Disease) was developed by David Leventhal at theMark Morris Dance Company in Brooklyn. Starting in 2001 and providing classes
in eight locations in New York City, Dance with PD is growing into an international
movement, including in the UK, where the Baring Foundation has supported
a network based at the organisation People Dancing.
Dance with PD states, ‘our fundamental working principle is that professionallytrained dancers are movement experts whose knowledge about balance,
sequencing, rhythm and aesthetic awareness is useful to persons with PD. In
class, teaching artists integrate movement from modern, ballet, tap, folk and social
dancing, and choreographic repertory to engage participants’ minds and bodies
and create an enjoyable, social environment for artistic exploration’.

46 Young@Heart Chorus
The Young@Heart Chorus began life in 1982 in a Western Massachusetts
elderly housing project as a way of passing time. The chorus ranges from 73 to
93 years of age. They have been on over 30 international tours. They shot to famein a fantastic documentary by George Walker first aired on the UK’s Channel Fourwhich has since become a documentary festival staple. Much of the attraction of
the Chorus is their unstoppable enthusiasm for rock classics sung in a way to defy
any stereotypes of older people.

47 Music and Memory
Although based in New York City and only founded in 2006, Music and Memory
has expanded to deliver training to thousands of care facilities, mainly in the
USA but also beyond. The training focuses on how to create playlists – for use on
mp3 players etc. – of music for people living with dementia. In this it bears someresemblance to Playlist for Life in Scotland. The programme has become widely
known through the film Alive Inside.

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48 Concerts in Motion
Concerts in Motion operates across the five boroughs of New York. It exists
to bring high-quality music to people who can’t come to the concert hall due
to physical facility or cognitive impairment. Concerts last an hour. Over 100
musicians bring professionally played music to around 2,000 mainly older people
per year. The charity has some similarities to Live Music Now in the UK.

49 Arts for the Aging (AFTA)
Arts for the Aging (AFTA) in Bethesda, Maryland began with a request for
artist Lolo Sarnoff to work with people living with Alzheimer’s in 1986. Twoyears later she set up the organisation at the age of 72. It has grown to provide
creative ageing projects throughout Greater Washington supplied by a groupof teaching artists. Projects take place in care homes as well as community andcultural centres. They range across art forms and are frequently intergenerational.
AFTA has developed a number of online resources for later life creativity.
Arts for the Aging, USA.

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3950 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Meet Me
MoMA in central Manhattan, New York, is one of the largest and most important
modern art museums in the world. It received a major grant from Met Life
Insurance in 2006 to expand its work with people living with dementia andtheir carers.
The core programme was to offer discussion and creativity workshops toparticipants either at MoMA or on an outreach basis to care homes and day
centres or other community venues. A key further step was to then codify thiswork into an extensive free website, using downloadable training packs andinspirational training videos. Thematic art modules draw on the Museum’s
collection. The approach received a positive evaluation from New York University.
Alongside this, MoMA used the grant to conduct a very extensive dissemination
exercise, with the result that between 2007 and 2014, 10,500 people saw
presentations through conferences and workshops across the USA and beyond
leading to very widespread replication.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NCanada51 Society for the Arts in Dementia Care (SADC)The Society for the Arts in Dementia Care (SADC) is based in British Colombia.
It was founded in 2005 and provides an umbrella body for practitioners andacademics. It also provides workshops and training on Creative Expression,Communication and Dementia – a tool for assessing and supporting the creative
abilities of people living with dementia.

52 Smile Theatre
The Smile Theatre based in Toronto, Ontario has been in operation since 1972.
It is the only professional theatre in Canada specialising in taking theatre towhere older people are, including nursing facilities, hospitals and care homes.
Performances always include music and a session at the end for performers tomeet the audience and sign programmes. Smile runs interactive workshops too.

53 Terrace Players
The Baycrest Centre in Toronto provides a range of services for older people
in Greater Toronto including care homes, day centres and specialised services.
Baycrest is the home for the Terrace Players. They are residents or users of thesecare services and use theatre to articulate their experience of care. Participants
can be in their 90s or centenarians. The group originated with the conceptof forum theatre and giving residents voice but has developed beyond these
constraints. Plays are performed for fellow residents and to the wider community.

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41Australia

54 Queensland Ballet (QB)Queensland Ballet (QB) was founded in 1960 and is one of only threeprofessional ballet companies in the country. QB has developed two classes
dedicated to older people, the more general Ballet for Seniors which is
being researched by the Queensland University of Technology and Ballet for
Parkinson’s, where QB is the first Australian ballet company to offer specialisedclasses.

55 Belconnnen Art Centre
The Belconnnen Art Centre in Canberra plays host to a series of dance classes,
developed as part of a cross-institution program including the National Gallery,
National Portrait Gallery, State Health authority and the Museum of Australia.
The series, Dementia in the Arts, caters to those experiencing chronic conditions,
including dementia and Parkinson’s Disease, and is delivered by a team of highly
experienced dance artists.

56 Mature Artists Dance Experience (MADE)
Mature Artists Dance Experience (MADE) is a dance agency based in Tasmania.
It creates dances to express the experience and stories of mature artists.
It works with dancers aged 50 and over. It has benefited from the involvementof international choreographer Graeme Murphy, including in the development of
a new work Frock, performed at the Saitama World Gold Festival in 2018. MADE
offers open classes for older people as well as developing Tasmania’s first Dancewith Parkinson’s initiative, Movers and Shakers.

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57 Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia in Sydney runs the Artfulprogramme for people living with dementia and their care partners. It has beenaccompanied by a three-year research study (2016-2018) with the Brain and
Mind Centre at the University of Sydney and Dementia Australia looking at theeffects of art on the neuro-plasticity of the brain. The Artful programme runs
over six weeks with two hourly workshops including discussion and hands-on
artmaking. Between the weekly sessions, an Artful at Home pack encourages
further creative activity. The programme culminates with an Artful Community
Day and exhibition at the gallery to celebrate what has been accomplished.

Artful: Art and Dementia program participants, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2018.
Photo by Jacquie Manning.

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4358 Humour Foundation
The Humour Foundation in Australia runs clowning encounters with a numberof types of hospital patients but has created a specific category of Elder Clowns
to go into care homes and nursing homes and specialises in working with people
living with dementia. There is a Vaudevillian element to the clowns, recallinga by-gone age of the 1940s and 50s. The Humour Foundation is keen toemphasise the value of respect by the clown towards the residents whose homes
they are entering.

59 Milk Crate Theatre
Milk Crate Theatre, based in Sydney, run drop-in workshops for ageing andlate-career artists. The sessions, offered throughout the year, see Milk Crate
partner with professional arts facilitators and community service providers tooffer a free and safe space where people can meet and learn new skills throughcreative processes.

60 Creative Aging Festival
The New South Wales-based Mid North Coast Creative Aging Festival is aninnovative annual event which supports the valuable role that seniors play incommunities, highlighting the importance of engaging in the arts to foster good
health and wellbeing as people age. The Festival has been inspired by the creative
ageing festivals in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.

61 Australian Centre for Arts and Health
Led by Director Margaret Meagher, one of the first people to drive awarenessof creative ageing in Australia, the Australian Centre for Arts and Healthis a highly effective national convening body. Its mission is to promote anddevelop the application of creativity and the arts for health and quality of life
outcomes for all people in Australia, regardless of age, race, gender or religiousor political persuasion.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

New Zealand

62 Kiwi Coffin ClubIt may not have started out as an arts organisation, but the Kiwi Coffin Club,is certainly creative. Members build and decorate their own coffins and also create
them for local hospitals. Now a national network, the Kiwi Coffin Club started in2007 in Rotorua. It is the brain child of former palliative care nurse Katie Williams.
She says it not only reduces the costs of funerals but has proved to be a way for
older people to come together, tackling loneliness and confronting death.

63 Hip Hoperation Crew
The Hip Hoperation Crew are a dance group managed by Billie Jordan. They shot
to fame in a documentary of the same name and have continued to tour across
New Zealand and internationally.

64 Make Moments
Make Moments is a project run by the charity Connect the Dots, based in
Auckland. Founded in 2014 by arts educators Andrea Gaskin and Selina
Anderson, Make Moments has narrowed its initial focus to serving people livingwith dementia. It offers arts tours as well as regular art making workshops.

65 Northern Dance Network
The Northern Dance Network believes in ‘all kinds of dance for all kinds ofpeople’. It serves the wider Auckland area. It runs ASPIRE dance workshops forolder people as well as the Senior DANCE Company which runs on a project by
project basis.

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Kiwi Coffin Club, New Zealand.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NSouth Africa

66 Outreach Foundation
The Outreach Foundation serves its community through a number programmes
including around employability as well as a socially engaged arts programmes
including theatre. They are based in one of South Africa’s most diverse anddensely populated areas, the Hillbrow suburb of Johannesburg. For a number ofyears they have worked with the Tswelopele Frail Care Centre and more recently
have visited the Johannesburg Society of the Blind. In these initiatives they havecreated theatre works involving school children around themes of belonging andhome, cultural belief systems and generational curses. The work has involved
confronting the older generation’s experiences of the apartheid era.

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AsiaGold Theatre of Saitama, Japan. Photo © Maiko Miyagawa.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

JapanVisiting Japan can feel like visiting the future in a number of ways, but for the
purpose of this report its current age structure may be quite similar to ours in 20
to 30 years’ time. One in four of the population are aged over 65 compared to one
in six in the UK. Around 4.6 million of a population of 120 million people live withdementia (the highest in the world) compared to 850,000 people in the UK. Japan
has been anticipating this demographic future since the 1960s (unlike England
which has lacked a national strategy on ageing for the last ten years). Even so
the system is under severe financial strain. There is a great emphasis on people
staying active and at home with less use of care homes than in the UK.
No one interested in creative ageing should leave Japan without having paid
homage to the extraordinary Gold Theatre of Saitama (71), perhaps the single
greatest achievement in this field in the world.

67 Arts Alive
Arts Alive is led by Yoko Hayashi, a visual artist and academic, and works acrossart forms with disadvantaged people in a participatory way which is common in
the UK but less so in Japan. Her first project took place in a care home located ina traditional Japanese house. It was decided to decorate the Shoji paper screensdividing rooms with stories told by residents including of their childhoods andlocal festivals. There has also been a travelling arts exhibition touring care homes
for around six months at a time. Another project takes care home residents withmobility problems and their carers to visit art galleries.

68 Kitanagoya-shi Historical Museum
The Kitanagoya-shi Historical Museum is sometimes called the Shōwa era
Lifestyle Museum (The Shōwa Era is the name given to the reign of Emperor
Hirohito from 1926 to 1989.) It is a museum ‘where it is difficult to remain silent’as everyday objects prompt excited memories. The Reminiscence School takes
place once a week for eight weeks and demand has resulted in long waiting lists.
Participants became friends and have gone on to become volunteers at the museum
after the course finished, introducing children to items from their own youth.
The museum has created reminiscence kits on various themes that are lent out.

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Oi Bokke Shi, Japan.

69 Oi Bokke Shi (Ageing Dementia Death)
Also of great interest is Oi Bokke Shi (Ageing Dementia Death) an initiative
founded by the pioneering artist Naoki Sugawara. His practice is informed bybeing both an actor and a paid carer and seeing the links between the two:
‘Being an actor has made me a better care worker and being a care worker has
made me a better actor’. I was very moved by his piece Night Never Grows
Darker which was part of the Saitama Gold Festival in 2018. In it the audience
follows the actors in a ‘theatre of wandering’ around the streets where a young
man encounters a much older friend who appears to be trying to find his wife
who has disappeared and is living with dementia.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

70 Art Resources Development Association (ARDA)
Since 1999 (the International Year of Older Persons) a major strand of activity
for Art Resources Development Association (ARDA) in Tokyo founded by
Emiko Namikawa has been work in care homes. Since then ARDA has organisedover 100 workshops, mainly using the visual arts, though other art forms havebeen used. Each class begins with an opportunity for carers to experience thework before moving on to residents.

Richard II at the Gold Theatre of Saitama. Photo © Maiko Miyagawa.

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71 The Gold Theatre of Saitama
The Mount Fuji of arts and older people work in Japan is the Gold Theatreof Saitama. The Saitama Arts Theatre is a major modern complex with four
auditoriums as well as 12 rehearsal halls and studios. On appointment, its
founding artistic director, Yukio Ninagawa, was by then already one of the mostesteemed theatre directors in the world. In 2006 something extraordinary
happened for older people’s art. Then aged 70, Ninagawa announced that
he wanted to ‘create a new form of theatre’. He wrote, ‘By harnessing theenergy of people with a lot of life experience, I thought we could create
experimental works that push the boundaries of what a performance could
be. The performers themselves are afflicted by numerous problems that face
our ageing society, from physical decline to mental issues, so putting on ashow involves hard work, but at the same time, the performers have theirown remarkable acting style that differs from that of professional actors andproduces many poignant moments’.
Ninagawa personally auditioned over 1,200 applicants, all 55 or over who
had not worked as actors. From these he selected 48 members aged 55–80(no new members have since been appointed to the company). He then spenta year training them. They worked for four hours a day, five days a week. The
actors are paid a modest wage. No actors have retired from the company.
This led to the Gold Theatre’s first official production the following year. Since
then it has staged over a dozen works. These have included Western classics,
such as Shakespeare and Chekhov, modern Japanese drama and pieces
specially commissioned from Japanese writers.
Being a member of the Gold Theatre has often been a genuinely life-changing
experience for its members. When visiting in 2015 I heard one actor, then aged
76 (actually the average age of the company in that year), recount how she had
left her husband to move to another part of the country to join. Another aged
88 described how acting had motivated him to recover from serious paralysis.
He also said, ‘in a recent performance, Ravens, We Shall Load Bullets, for somereason I found it hard to say my lines. Looking back over my life, I rememberedwitnessing the burnt-out landscape after the Great Tokyo Air Raid when
I was 18.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NThis destruction reminded me of a scene in the play, and once I remembered
that, my lines came out smoothly. I realised that this was what Mr Ninagawa
had meant about making use of our own experiences.’ Then to prove his
continued powers he recited from memory ‘the medicine seller’s speech’,a traditional actor’s exercise!
Sadly Yukio Ninagawa died in 2016, still at the height of his creative powers
and one of the greatest figures in international theatre. It was important that
his legacy survived him and the enlarged Gold Arts Club has around 1,000
members. In 2018 I saw half their number on stage in a stunning and very comicpiece called The Imaginary Invalid, based on Molière’s The Hypochondriac anddirected by Seiji Nozoe. This was part of another accolade for Saitama Theatre,
its first international festival of older people’s creativity called World Gold
Theatre 2018.

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53Taiwan72 National Museum of Fine Arts in TaichungTaiwan has a thriving network of age-friendly museums (the Baring Foundation
funds its UK equivalent hosted by the British Museum). An example of the workof its members can be found in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung,with its large sculpture park one of the largest art museums in Asia. The Museum
runs services for isolated older people, intergenerational group activities anddementia-friendly tours.

73 Social Affairs Bureau
Kaohsiung is one of Taiwan’s three major cities with a population similar
to Birmingham’s. Its Social Affairs Bureau is therefore large-scale running
232 community centres, 227 early learning centres and 59 senior citizens centres.
It sees creative ageing as an important aspect of its work with older people andhas developed a system of ‘heritage ambassadors’. There are 200 in Kaohsiungand they can explore a wide range of arts including storytelling, Chinese opera
and music making, traditional calligraphy, ink painting and the visual arts
more generally.

74 Catholic Foundation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related
Dementia (CFAD)

The Catholic Foundation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia(CFAD) is a social welfare foundation and care provider for the elderly andthose with dementia. To meet the demands of an ageing society, CFAD provides
resources and programs – including in nursing homes – alongside more creative
approaches to support. Documentary films, short films and animations are justsome of the mediums CFAD has used to educate the public about dementia.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Ms. Yinmei Chang joined Go Grandriders taking on the challenge of riding motorcycle around the islandof Taiwan. Photo courtesy of Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation.

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55

75 Hondao Senior Citizens’ Foundation
This is one of the most inspiring creative ageing and older people’s empowerment
initiatives in the world in my view.
It has three streams of work around ‘filial piety’, ‘community care’ and one called‘dreams never grow old’. It has over 400 staff, 2,000 volunteers and can be foundacross the island. Everything they do seems to combine flair with a sense of fun.
The Go Grandriders Project is a 13-day motorcycle road trip which has been
made into a much admired documentary film.
There are a wide range of ‘Bulao’ or ‘Never Old’ projects as part of the‘Dreams’ strand:– A Never Old Band where objects are recycled into musical instruments, as wellas using conventional musical instruments. This has grown to 1,200 membersin 47 bands;– The Senior on Broadway competition climaxes with the performanceof ten groups in Taipei’s equivalent of the O2 Arena, broadcast to audiencesof millions;– The Bulao Love project asked fashion photographers to take wedding
photographs where there have never been any, which are then exhibitedand put into a magazine.
Initiatives don’t always involve the arts. There’s a Bulao Baseball League anda Bulao Soldier project involving spending a day with the Ministry of Defence
reliving conscription.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NSouth Korea
If you are in your nineties in Korea you will have seen amazing changes – fromJapanese occupation in World War Two to invasion from the North and the
Korean war (killing 3 million people and separating families), military dictatorshipand rapid industrialisation and democracy. This has led to a stereotype of older
Koreans being pretty tough and uncompromising (though apparently with adisarming penchant for dancing in the aisle on tour buses). There can be sometensions between generations and older Koreans are seen as being so consumed
with work and bringing up families that they had little time to indulge in the arts.
But the country also has a growing creative sector again and some projects andprogrammes of enormously high quality.

76 Korean Arts and Culture Education Service
The Korean Arts and Culture Education Service was established in 2006
to place ‘teaching artists’ in schools and now runs in 17 local centres acrossthe country. More recently it has branched out to placing teaching artists inorganisations serving older people. This resulted in a spirited Korea’s Got Talenttype show of older people called the Cheungchun Festival.

77 Store N
Artist Mee-Wha Lee set up Store N in the Anyang 8 dong district of Seoul. Thisinitiative has focussed on working with older residents. The very inspiring work
included an older watchmaker turning his hand to exquisite creations for children,
women embroidering pieces entitled ‘the last clothes I will wear’ for their coffins,
full of personal meaning, and a challenging film where sex workers return to thesite of an American military base.

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57

78 IMAGOIMAGO is a community arts project in Busan, Korea’s beautiful second city, whichgrew from a fishing village to a metropolis when millions of people fled from Seoulin the Korean war, which, dangerously close to the border, was repeatedly taken
and lost by the Communist North. So many of the older people using the beautiful
IMAGO centre with its gorgeous views of the sea, started life as refugees fromthe North. Poet and storyteller Jounghi Hwang draws out their life stories throughthe arts. This has resulted in a puppet play, a beautifully designed children’s
story book, intergenerational drama, and not least a splendidly eccentric versionof Monopoly played with a giant dice. Participants can also choose to study
Confucian philosophy, go on trips to the countryside or make kites. (I think thatheaven must be like IMAGO.)IMAGO, South Korea. Photo © IMAGO.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O NSingapore79 Silver Arts Festival
The Silver Arts Festival, established in 2012 by the Arts Council of Singapore,runs annually across multiple sites in September. Although it spans all art forms,
the festival focuses on the role of musical performance and film in particular. The
festival also aims to foster inter-generational connection within families, so mainly
happens at weekends when people in work are more likely to be free. The festival
also features a symposium on the use of the arts in social care for older people.
There are numerous volunteering opportunities within the initiative.
Beyond the festival, creative ageing continues to be enriched by an increasing
number of community arts practitioners in Singapore. With one in four residents
expected to be aged above 65 by 2030, ageing has become a major policy issue in
Singapore, giving rise to collaborations between the health and social care sector
to develop ageing-related programmes.
Silver Arts 2018 – Arts On the Move “Good Oldies!” by The Meltones. Photo © National Arts Council, Singapore.

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59Hong Kong

80 Colours of Dementia
Colours of Dementia was a six-month trial art facilitation programme fordementia care in a community setting. Between December 2013 and June 2014,
a series of eighteen specially designed creative workshops were conducted for
14 elders, aged 59 to 94, who were suffering from mild to advanced dementia.
Relatives and caregivers accompanying the elders to the workshops were invitedas participants. The title, Colours of Dementia, refers to the images producedby these elders. Colours of Dementia was led by Prof. Sophia Law, Associate
Professor of the Department of Visual Studies at Lingnan University and was
supported by the Hong Kong Alzheimer’s Disease Association (HKADA) andArt for All.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Macushla Dance Workshop, Bealtaine Festival, 2017. Photo courtesy of Bealtaine Festival.

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61Conclusion
A N O L D E R A N D M O R E C R E AT I V E W O R L D

Perhaps the greatest advance in human history to date is our rapidly increasing
longevity as a species. According to the most recent report on global ageing by
the UN in 2017:– T he global population aged over 60 had increased to 962 million in 2017 from
382 million in 1980.
– It is expected this will more than double again to 2.1 billion in 2050.
– T he number of people aged over 80 should increase from 137 million in 2017
to 425 million in 2050.
– B
 y 2030 older people are expected to outnumber children under 10 yearsof age.
– T wo thirds of the world’s older people live in the ‘developing’ regions(such as Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America) where their numbers
are growing faster than in developing regions (such as Europe, North Americaand Australasia).

The world is growing older – hurrah!
Therefore the world is waking up to the consequences of ageing societies.
Extra Time (2018), Camilla Cavendish’s rather breathless canter around scientificand social innovations around the world, shows a plethora of developments toaddress the two decades of good health that may follow the traditional retirement
age for many people in the West. Her conclusion that a sense of personal
purpose is central to wellbeing in later life may not be especially original but it
does underline that this is too often absent in societies that only value paid work,
Carl Honoré comes to a similar conclusion in Bolder: Making the most of ourlonger lives (2018). Honoré displays slightly more interest in the role of the arts
in later life and even evinces some – slender – research suggesting our brains
experience a creative spurt in our sixties.

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

TH I RD A N D FOU RTH AG E – OR TH E ‘ YOU NG OLD’AND THE ‘OLD OLD’
There are many conflicting definitions of ‘old age’. Increasingly it is felt that isclumsy to use a single term which may span thirty to forty years for some people.
There will also be people for whom life at 65 or 70 feels quite like life at 45 or 50.
Some commentators have begun to write about the ‘old old’ sometimes describedas over 85. As is well established, poverty tends to have a highly deleterious
impact on ageing, making ill health more likely at an earlier age and reducing
longevity substantially.
An alternative approach is to eschew chronology and concentrate on healthstatus or capacity. Therefore people in their third age may have been long retired
from paid employment but are highly active physically and mentally in theirseventies or eighties or even older. While someone in their ‘fourth’ age might
be experiencing serious physical or cognitive challenges in their sixties.
This is an unfinished debate to encourage arts organisations and funders to be
especially vigorous in supporting people in their fourth age to be creative. Theseare people more likely to be experiencing loneliness of dementia (discussed
below) or other challenges. In these circumstances both their access to the arts is
reduced, for instance through living in a care home, but also the potential benefits
may be even greater.

DE ME NTIA AND LONE LINESS – CHALLE NGESC R E AT I V E A G I N G C A N H E L P TA K E O N
These global trends in demographics are likely to be accompanied, at least in
the medium term, with a rise in prevalence in forms of dementia, along with theimpact this has not only on the lives of those with the disease but also on theircarers, friends and family. The cause and effects of dementia in the UK have rarely
been so beautifully charted as by Nicci Gerrard in What Dementia Teaches Us
about Love (2018). Her account places great weight on the power of the arts togive fulfilment to people living with dementia. Much of the work that the Baring
Foundation has funded in the UK has demonstrated this and it will need to be apart of the considerations of arts organisations across the world in the future.
There is also evidence that the scourge of social isolation is becoming moreprevalent in other societies among older people, for instance in Japan. This will ofcourse be highly influenced by the traditions and structures of different societies,
especially around the family and communal activity, but it is at least possible thatrising individualism globally will make this more common.

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63Again creative ageing, especially when intergenerational, can have highly positiveeffects in developing new relationships and confidence as we described in our2012 publication with the Campaign to End Loneliness: Tackling loneliness inolder life – the role of the arts.

UNIVERSAL AND SPECIFIC
What has struck me most when I have had the privilege of visiting creative ageing
work abroad, is that it is both specific and universal.
Specific because societies and cultures are specific. Although the tradition of‘filial piety’ in North East Asia in, say Taiwan and Japan, is gradually changing,it does still contribute to those countries feeling different to this outsider. (Thoughof course our own attitudes towards ageing in Western Europe have evolved overtime. There is no better account of this than The Long History of Old Age, 2005,
edited by Pat Thane). Also it is easy to forget that creative ageing may be mostwidely expressed through traditional art forms that are culturally embedded, suchas the mass phenomenon of older people dancing in public in China.
And universal both because to survive at all is to face old age and increasingly theworld is ageing. It may take a long time but the demographic change that Japan
has been experiencing for decades is likely to be the fate of all countries.

A N O L D E R W O R L D C A N B E A M O R E C R E AT I V E W O R L D
An older world is something to celebrate. Older people have had greater time
to contribute to their communities and longer to experience the world. The
creative opportunities open to them are boundless given supportive societies that
appreciate the contribution they have made already and can continue to make.
Creative ageing should become a more central part of all our futures. For many
people it will supply some of that essential sense of personal purpose andfulfilment that Cavendish says is central to successful ageing. Ageing countries
around the world must increasingly address how arts and culture are part ofeveryday experience and relevant to everyone in society including those inlater life.
The legendary cellist Pablo Cassals was asked at the age of 91 by a pupil why
he continued to practice and he replied: ‘Because I am making progress.’

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Recommendations– U
 NESCO in its work on Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
should acknowledge the importance of creativity in the lives of older people.
– N ational Ministries of Culture and Arts Councils should ensure that theirstrategies and provision cover the entire life course, including people in their‘fourth age’.
– N ational Ministries of Health and Welfare should ensure that their strategies
and provision explicitly recognise the value of culture and creativity, including
in later life.
– Independent funders of the arts such as foundations should consider
the important role they can play both in offering resources to creative
ageing activities, but also in bridging the separate worlds of older people’sorganisations and arts and cultural organisations.
– IFACCA – the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies– should promote the importance of creative ageing among its membership.
– O pportunities for international exchange should be maximised such as theinclusion of creative ageing in conferences on ageing and on dementia.

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Themed travel itineraries
V ISUA L A RTS– A
 telier D, Germany (20)– A
 rt for Care, Germany (17)– D emenz Kunst Gesellschaft, Austria (35)– C olours of Dementia, Hong Kong (80)– Q uiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, USA (42)DA NCE A N D MOV E M E NT
– P
 RA Muziektheater, The Netherlands (8)– S kånes Dansteater– Sweden (26)– D ance for PD, USA (45)– Q ueensland Ballet, Australia (54)– B elconnen Arts Centre, Australia (55)– M ature Artists Dance Experience, Australia (56)– H ip Hoperation, New Zealand (63)– O
 i Bokke Shi, Japan (69)MUSIC AND SINGING– M
 usic Generations, The Netherlands (6)– M usiikkitalo, Finland (29)– M usic and Memory, USA (47)– C oncerts in Motion, USA (48)– Y oung@Heart Chorus, USA (46)

65

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T H E AT R E / P E R F O R M A N C E– A
 ltentheater, Germany (16)– S ering, Belgium (23)– P eeping Tom, Belgium (21)– T rupe Sénior, Portugal (33)– S
 tagebridge, USA (40)– S mile Theatre, Canada (52)– T he Humour Foundation, Australia (58)– M ilk Crate Theater, Australia (59)– G old Theatre of Saitama, Japan (71)
– Outreach Foundation, South Africa (66)F E S T I VA L S– A
 ge and Opportunity/Bealtaine, Ireland (4)– G ekleurd Grijs, The Netherlands (13)– T he Silver Arts Festival, Singapore (79)– C reative Aging Festival, Australia (60)

C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G A N D L I T E R AT U R E– W
 intertuin, The Netherlands (15)– T imeslips, USA (38)– A
 rts for the Aging - USA (49)C ROSS -A R T FO R M WO R K I N G– U
 illinn, Ireland (1)– W
 aterford Healing Arts, Ireland (2)– C ompanhia Maior, Portugal (34)– E lders Share the Arts, USA (39)– R uth’s Table, USA (43)– A
 rts Alive, Japan (67)– H ondao Senior Citizens’ Forum, Taiwan (75)

T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D I N 8 0 C R E AT I V E AG E I N G P R O J E C T S– S
 ocial Affairs Bureau, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (73)– C atholic Foundation of Alzheimer’s Disease, Taiwan (74)
– IMAGO, South Korea (78)– S tore N, South Korea (77)

CARE HOMES– C
 are & Culture, The Netherlands (7)– A
 rt for Care, Germany (17)– C omprehensive Care Centres, Finland (30)
– IONA Services, USA (41)– T errace Players, Canada (53)– A
 rt Resources Development Association (ARDA), Japan (70)

MUSEUMS– M
 V1D, The Netherlands (10)– S MAAK Foundation, The Netherlands (11)– V an Gogh Museum, The Netherlands (12)– L ehmbruck Museum, Germany (19)– E tnografiska Museum, Sweden (25)– D en Gamle By, Denmark (32)– M oMA, USA (50)– M useum of Contemporary Art, Australia (57)– K itanagoya-shi Historical Museum, Japan (68)– N ational Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (72)

67

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T H E B A R I N G F O U N DAT I O N

Selected resources
O N C R E AT I V E A G E I N G
All resources can be found on our website www.baringfoundation.org.uk

Growing the Creative Ageing
Movement: International lessons
for the UK
Alice Thwaite

A partnership between The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and theBaring Foundation

Treasury of arts
activities for older
peopleLiz Postlethwaite
2019

Late opening:arts and older
people in Scotland
Andrew
Eaton-Lewis
2017

Towards the end:
The Baring
Foundation’s Arts
and Older People
Programme
2010–2017
David Cutler

Growing thecreative ageing
movement:
international
lessons for the UK
Alice Thwaite
2017

C R E AT I V E AG E I N G I N G E R M A N Y
A view from North Rhine-Westphalia
By Harriet Lowe

D U TC H O L D M A S T E R S –A N D M I S T R E SS E S

A New Form of Theatre

Creative ageing in the Netherlands
by David Cutler

Dutch old masters– and mistresses:
creative ageing in
the Netherlands
David Cutler
2017

Creative ageingin Germany: theview from North
Rhine-Westphalia
Harriet Lowe2017

Older People’s Involvement in Theatre and Drama

Living national treasure – arts and older
people in Japan

By Kate Organ

By David Cutler

A new formof theatre:older people’s
involvement intheatre and drama
Kate Organ
2016

Living nationaltreasure: arts andolder people in
JapanDavid Cutler
2015

Mr Fogg quietly shut the door.
Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and madehis journey around the world in eighty days.
To do this he had employed every means ofconveyance – steamers, railways, carriages,
yachts, trading vessels, sledges, elephants.
Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days (1873).

The Baring Foundation
8-10 Moorgate
London EC2R 6DA
020 7767 1348
www.baringfoundation.org.uk
Twitter: @baring_foundOctober 2019
ISBN: 978-1-906172-43-5