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IDEA

Interaction, Dementia and Engagement with the Arts.

The IDEA Project was funded by British Academy-funded (£7.5k) and ran 2017-19. It involved:

With their partners at Equal Arts and Arts Centre Washington, project members explored how arts engagements, such as craft workshops, benefits both people living with dementia, and their carers.

The project examined interactions involving:

  • arts workshop facilitators
  • people living with dementia
  • carers

The project explored social participation and identifed what rich, meaningful participation looks like. Drawing on video recordings of people as they engage in social arts activities, the project focused on the interactional strategies people use that result in increased, active participation. Particularly those which enable people living with dementia to contribute autonomously to the social interaction.

The work established in this project is being expanded in a follow-up project, IDEAL (funded by a UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award)