Narrating memories as therapy

With this second Art and Culture Workshop as Therapy, the debate on Alzheimers is opened up towards experiments within the research where the act of “narrating memories” joins the scientific investigation.

Literature is a source of inspiration where imagination melds with reality. Citing Marcel Proust and his book, Remembrance of Things Past, the writer points out that only by experiencing, one can remember things past. In other words, reality takes shape in the memory alone. Situations and objects evoke man's memory as man takes notice of his environment. As an example, Proust described in his novel, how the imagination of the protagonist became reality at the moment of recalling different smells, colours and lines in the landscape on his walk with his grandfather.

One of the challenges of our workshop lies in the effort of observing, as a way to focus the memory. As a result of searching for a book of popular culture and one that did not demand special knowledge to be understood, the Alzheimers patients listened to the tale, The Wedding[1], in the same way as they would listen to a minstrel. Written by the journalist, José García Martínez, the story opens up to realities related to the traditional holidays in the Region of Murcia. They are important events that make links between the place, impressive religious symbols and scents of spring, gastronomic flavours and sounds of whistles blowing, as well as including actors from the past.

The Wedding

It all happened during the same day, the day of the “Sardine’s Funeral”. The story of The Wedding narrates how Lemon and Sardine got married during the Spring Holidays in Murcia.

“Once upon a time, a lemon lived in the Espinardo neighbourhood. Its name was Lemon. He spent all his time hanging on a branch over a little stream. He liked observing the flow of this small river, so fresh and clean. But, what he found really fascinating were the reflections the sun left on the water, as shiny as silver coins or the scales of a siren. Occasionally, the soft wind moved the branch and Lemon could almost kiss the surface of the passing water.

One day, a sardine passed by on the path. Her name was Sardine. Lemon looked at her and realized she was the famous sardine of the “Sardine’s Funeral” and she was being escorted from the city, Molina de Segura, to the capital, Murcia. Lemon noticed that her expressions and her splendour were the same as those of the water canal and he fell in love with her…”

This is how the story begins, taking place in a landscape that we all know, namely, the fruit land. Bright colours, different smells, the textures of nature and the happiness inherent in watching the carriages, were elements able to provoke the patients’ imagination and enabled them to initiate a journey where the mind and the inspiration were free and without prejudice. The emotion would lead them towards the way to describe an experience, which, although subjective, is recognisable by us all. Even if they were narrations of fragile connections with reality, they were related with the same excitement as those recollections of lived and happy experiences that are fixed in our memory.

In fact, we can all be a narrator like the journalist, José García Martínez, who, committed to society, calls for reactions from his readers and listeners with his reflections. This is the repercussion the workshop has on all of us, to value the capacity of the medium of narrating to fix realities shaped in our memories, acting as a reflection of values, social and cultural ones.

Halldóra Arnardóttir, PhD in History of Art and Coordinator of the Art and Culture Workshops as Therapy, Fundación AlzheimUr.

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[1]José García Martínez (1999) El Casamiento. Fiestas de Primavera 1999. Ayuntamiento de Murcia. Caja Murcia.