Stories of creative ageing

Older adults' participation in artistic activities: a scoping review

This scoping review analyses existing literature on older adults' participation in artistic activities. It identifies gaps in this research topic and suggests new directions for research. We followed the five-step process defined by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and extended by Levac et al. (2010). Four electronic databases were searched, and 129 peer-reviewed articles were included in the scoping review. Research into older adults' participation in artistic activities has grown in the last ten years. However, empirical papers tend to focus on the outcomes of older people's participation in artistic activities, in particular the benefits. Most papers centred on facilitators to examine the antecedents of this type of participation among people in late life. Research about experiences, potentially negative consequences or barriers to older adults' participation in artistic activities have been largely overlooked. We identified several gaps in the literature, which we classified as: related to the artistic activities that were considered; the potential costs and barriers for older adults' participation in artistic activities; older adults' voices and their diversity; the life course perspective; and a contextual view of research on the topic. These gaps suggest challenges that future research on older adults' participation in artistic activities should consider.

Facilitating arts participation for creative ageing: an action research in South Korea

How to promote wellbeing in old age is an issue that is drawing increasing attention as populations age in societies around the world. This study explores arts participation in later life and creative ageing through artistic engagement. We focus on potential participants who have had little prior experience with the arts, examining their journey through artistic activities, and the broader benefits to society of a creatively engaged population. We applied an action research methodology by designing two phases of arts workshops, one focused on hands-on creation activities and the other on appreciation of professional artists' works. This approach yielded the following findings. First, facilitation is key to initiating and sustaining artistic engagement among older adults, in part by helping them adapt to a changing society. Second, potential participants should be centred in discussions on creative initiatives. In particular, still active pre-seniors have much to offer in developing creative ageing initiatives. Third, arts participation for creative ageing goes far beyond the individual; it promotes community wellbeing and contributes to creating social value. Finally, we make an actionable suggestion that ‘facilitation for arts participation’ be developed as a specialised professional field.

Hands across Care: Art and social practice in health and elder care contexts

OBJECTIVES

The convergence of socially engaged art and innovative health care was a key focus of Space and Place in End-of-Life Care, a Swedish transdisciplinary research project (2017-2020). For this project, researchers created, facilitated, and documented a range of socially engaged art and innovative healthcare practices during their exploration of the end of life in the context of Stockholm elder care residential settings.

STUDY DESIGN

Formulated as a year-long transdisciplinary research residency, two or more art, design, and/or innovative healthcare researchers met in a Stockholm residential elder care home on a weekly basis to observe and encounter people and place and interact, converse, produce, and exchange knowledge in collaboration with the residents, carers, management, friends, family members, and other researchers.

METHODS

Researchers engaged in a weekly transdisciplinary research residency in a Stockholm elder care residence to encounter and interact with the people, space and place of the study setting, and learn from and contribute to the residential home. The scientific researchers engaged in a community-based participatory action research project that utilized interviews, photo-elicitation processes, and community round table discussions. This happened in dialogue with the artistic residency process, wherein the artists collaborated with the inhabitants, staff, and visitors of the residential elder care home to produce a series of socially engaged events, experiences, and artifacts, one of which was the participatory art event, the Handfestival that is the case study of this article.

RESULTS

The weekly artistic residency for the Space and Place in End-of-Life Care project resulted in the Handfestival, a participatory art event exploring hands, touch and conversation generated by researchers from the fields of art, design, innovative health and elder care in collaboration with residents, staff and family of a Swedish elder care residence. The Handfestival is a model on the intersection between socially engaged art practices and innovative health care approaches and demonstrates how elder care residences and public health agencies could engage in regular, creative, and relational activities for the participation of inhabitants in healthcare settings.

CONCLUSIONS

Socially engaged and participatory art practices increase levels of social engagement and promote a greater sense of interconnectivity within health care settings. As such, the Handfestival participatory event reveals the potential for the convergence of art and health via social practice, modeling a way to develop, orchestrate and disseminate events, experiences, and/or artifacts as health services that public health agencies can and should deliver, but might find challenging to imagine and manifest.

What's it worth? Value and valuation of late-life creativity

New interest in late-life creativity has arisen in gerontology. To date, such research has mainly focused on the positive impact creativity has on older adults, but has scarcely contextualised older adults’ creative engagement. Drawing on the sociology of valuation, this article aims to contextualise late-life creativity by critically exploring how creativity gains, stabilises and loses its value and how these processes are related to perceptions, images and discourses addressing old age. Data from 13 interviews with older (60+) adults involved in creative practices in Austria are used to explore these topics. Interviews examined perceptions of creative production, everyday routines and personal attitudes towards ageing. Interviews transcripts were analysed using the documentary method. The analysis revealed three registers of valuation in late-life creativity: economic value, in which valuable creativity was given away at a high revenue; field value, where valuable creativity was appreciated by institutions or other artists in the field; and lifecourse value, in which doing a creative activity for a long time meant being able to produce a creative product that was high in value. This article emphasises late-life creativity as a process of value production that is structured by the making and evaluating of creative products and adds to the current critique that the narrow view of late-life creativity in its associations with wellbeing present a reductionist picture of the capacities that the arts and creativity have for older adults. The results demonstrate the potential for valuation studies in gerontology as they highlight the circumstances and practices by which the activities of older adults are (de)valued. For policy and practice, this article suggests imagining arts-based interventions for older adults beyond the realm of health and wellbeing, and encourages thinking about how valuable artistic experiences can be supported in later life.

The emergence of the creative ager - On subject cultures of late-life creativity

OBJECTIVES

In the last fifteen years, research on aging has seen a new interest in creativity in later life. While late-life creativity has often been described as a method to unpack the potential of older adults in the face of demographic change, this newfound interest is arguably linked to the commodification of late-life creativity itself in terms of innovation and productivity. These new modes of creativity might then also establish new ways to age. Has the homo aestheticus spread into old age?

METHOD

To explore this question, this paper first lays out a praxeology of late-life creativity. In this framework, creativity as well as age is understood as a social practice through which the artwork as well as the (older) artist is continuously produced. Second, this paper draws upon data from thirteen semi-structured interviews with older adults regularly involved in creative practices in their everyday lives. Using the documentary method, data shows how older adults describe the creative practice and what meanings they attach to growing older within these practices.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Analyzing subject cultures that emerge from creativity in later life shows how creative practice calls for a specific self-image that is centered around productivity, the preservation of field positions despite growing older and active as well as anti-aging. Studying late-life creativity through a praxeological lens allows for critically evaluating current modes of creativity and the normative positions that are inherent in these practices.