The first Workshop of Arte and Culture as Therapy initiated from the art exhibition, “Entretelas”, the work of the painter Chelete Monereo in the Museum of Fine Arte in Murcia. The third of June 2008, 10 patients of Alzheimer visited the exhibition together with their families, the artist and medical team.
Using the exhibition as an inspiration and means to active conversation about memories linked to their personal belongings, with them the patients created Luggage of Memory. The activity began in their homes with their families and concluded with their medical in the Dementia Unit. For this, the patients and families gathered together objects charged with memories.
In the Dementia Unit, each patient was provided with a beautiful leather suitcase to keep his objects of memory. To make the task easier, the medical team prepared a guide of suggestions. In the process of organizing the belongings, the patients explained the collection to the neuropsychologists and fellow patients. Following that, Chelete was reincorporated to the workshop to work with the patients in the creation of the Scarves of Remembrance. The workshop, the art of “Entretelas” concludes with an exhibition of the Luggage of Memory and Scarf of Remembrance, together with a medical report recounting the experience.
The objects selected by the patients related to playing, the school, the working life, the family and friends. After having collected the objects and photographs from their homes, each patient brought them to the Unit to organise them in his/her Luggage of Memory. Placing them in the luggage, the patient worked on his/her memory explaining the situations embedded in the object, following the order of his/her childhood, youth and maturity during six sessions. Following a set of questions, the aim was to identify the emotion that was associated to the object and its setting.
In the Workshop of the Art of Entretelas, the luggage is used as a tool of expression, of a call from the profound memory of each patient. Thus, appeared memories of reunions with the family and friends, celebrations and work, presents from boyfriends and things that had followed them during their lifespan.
In order to protect and enfold these valuable objects, each patient elaborated a Scarf of Remembrance for his/her luggage. This scarf forms part of the narration about their life route seen through the objects. The patient’s period of life was maintained to work on the notion of time, the colours of life and on transcribing emotions through a non-verbal expression. Chelete suggested working with a long fabric that would represent the childhood, youth and maturity, just as they had followed describing their objects. They drew, wrote and fixed their memories on to the fabric of close relatives and friends and lived experiences. During three sessions, individually the patients cut a piece of the fabric according their sense for the time. In the first session the theme was the memory of their parents, children games and friends. The second sessions focused on good and bad experiences while the third session represented their daily life of the present. In the fourth session, the task was to unite the different parts of their lives and recover the memory of the situations that they had been drawing.
As a way to register the workshop, each object had its sheet of evaluation measuring the degree of emotion as well as the patient being asked a set of questions corresponding to each object. Furthermore, the patient was evaluated and observed in each session in the context of clinical issues such as behaviour and emotional state. Before the initiation of the intervention and at the end of the workshop, the degree of participation and the patient’s implication during its process was measured. Measuring indicators were used by means of clinical following-up and questionnaires of quality of life, degree of deterioration, emotional level, behaviour, mental state and the degree of satisfaction.
In order to continue observing possible changes or development of the disease suffered by these patients, all the sessions were recorded in video with sounds as well as being photographed. Thus, it will be possible to measure and compare facts throughout the required time of the investigation, facts on language expression and on emotion.
- “A través del armario”. Catalogue for the exhibition: Chelete Monereo, Entretelas in the Museum of Fine Arts in Murcia. 2008.
- “Nationality in Context” in Framework, n. 7 June 07. Special Nordic Issue.
-The MOMA Alzheimer’s Project: Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia. A Guide for Museums. The Museum of Modern Art. http://www.moma.org/education/alzheimers.
- Worlds in a Box. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995. The South Bank Centre.
No comments:
Post a Comment