Art as a bridge to the world

Art as a bridge to the world

In accessibility programs for people with dementia, there is another targeted audience that we should consider. The Rubin Museum of Art in New York describes their accessibility program Mindful Connections for people with dementia and their 'caregivers'. In their registration form for the program, the museum asks not only name of person with dementia but also name of caregiver. There are some obvious reasons like people who have mental disease always need carers' help since they are hard to live by themselves. However, we could also think about caregivers' benefits from the accessibility program.

In the article new role for art galleries: Art-viewing as a community intervention for family carers of people with mental problems, the writer said there are three benefits from the art viewing for carers: Educational dimension, aesthetic dimension, and psychological dimension. By looking at the art works, they can find some beauties in art works, so they can get some aesthetic experience. As educational dimension, they were encouraged to 'seek out further learning' through viewing art works. With viewing art works, the family carers 'connect themselves to other sources of beauty' emotionally. Sometimes they connected their emotions with art works.

Even though caregivers are not main target of most accessible programs, museums could think about caregivers' benefits from the accessibility programs since it is possible that 'caregiving role could influence their own mental health'. Art could be a bridge, which connects socially isolated situation since their caregiver's role to a normal human being, for the carers. Furthermore, by sharing their opinions and thoughts, art could be another connection between people with mental health problems and their caregivers as same participant position. You can find other museums programs for people with dementia and their caregivers:

• Metropolitan Museum: http://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/programs-for-visitors-with-disabilities/visitors-with-dementia-and-their-care-partners
• National Center for Creative Aging: http://www.creativeaging.org/creative-aging-program/7578
• The American Folk Art Museum: http://www.folkartmuseum.org/disabilities
•  Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/calendar/event/5815

1) Rubin museum dementia program "Mindful connection"

2) New York time article: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/reconnecting-through-art/#more-11843

3) Article: Samantha Roberts, Paul M. Camic & Neil Springham (2011): New roles for art galleries: Art-viewing as a community intervention for family carers of people with mental health problems, Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice, 3:2, 146-159

Art museum programs for people with dementia

"When we were discussing a painting by Chagall my husband said it brought back memories of the cemetery where his mother was buried when he was a child of eight. He had never mentioned that before." It was a mention about a caregiver's experience who participated at Museum of Modern Art's Alzheimer program.

Dementia is a general term for a group of brain disorders, of which Alzheimer's disease is the most common. Alzheimer's disease destroys brain cells, memories, language, and behaviors. According to MoMA's statics, “today more than five million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer's disease. That number has doubled since 1980 and is expected to be as high as sixteen million by 2050.” [1] Recently, museums that have accessibility programs for an audience with dementia have increased. I believe this is due to the needs of lots of people who have the disease. I want to introduce two art museum's accessibility programs for an audience with dementia. One of them is the MoMA Alzheimer's project: Meet Me and other program is Contemporary Journeys in Walker Art Center. 

MoMA's Meet Me is a pioneer program in the museum field for people with dementia. While watching around 6-7 art works together, they look at the works and talk about their thoughts and observations with guiding questions of the educator. This program developed with NYU is based on background information on dementia and the research about how its programs affect people with Alzheimer's disease. The program was developed by conducting evaluations with Audience Focus, Inc. in 2011. MoMA has led workshops for staff, educators, and other museums, and one of the museums is Walker Art Center. The program is called Contemporary Journey and has two parts: a gallery tour and an art lab class. In the gallery, the audience observes and discusses the art works and in the art lab, they experience various ways to see the world through art works. This program also was created in collaboration with Alzheimer's Association of Minnesota-North Dakota, the Goodman Group, and MoMA in New York.

These programs do not rely on participants’ memories but their observations in the moment. Thus, people with the disease don’t have to worry about their memory loss. What’s more, most programs are designed as groups, so the audience can communicate with each other and improve their social interactions. While researching museum accessibility programs, I wondered why other museums didn’t have similar programs except art museum. Even though art works have some concrete information like historical facts and physical forms, there are no specific answers to understand the works. They more touch on participants’ emotional part. Thus, by describing their feelings, some people remember their childhood like the mention of participant in first paragraph. Furthermore, through collaborating with professional institute, the museums embrace their audience in their program. If you want to see more details, you can find the resources in below site:

·      MoMA ‘Meet Me’

http://www.moma.org/meetme/index

·      Walker Art Center ‘Contemporary Journey’

http://www.walkerart.org/education-community-programs/accessibility-initiatives

·      Journal Article: Two Art Museum Programs for People with Dementia

http://lcoastpress.metapress.com/content/kv133v001n656605/

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[1] Publication of Meet Me: Making Art Accessible for People with Dementia - http://www.moma.org/docs/meetme/Print_1_Dementia.pdf