As part of the St Monans Community Arts Festival on 12th and 13th September 2015, a portrait exhibition celebrated older people from the local community.
The Inkwell exhibition included portraits, each with a short story. The project aimed, in artist Andy Archer’s words, ‘to remind all generations that older people are treasure troves of adventure and knowledge’.
The portraits were created by Andy, with the help of the Abercrombie Court, Plan P group, who asked local people if they would be willing to take part. There are portraits of some Bield Housing tenants from nearby Elie, as well as some well-known characters from St Monans. For each person, a group member and Andy visited or met with them, to take some pictures and have a chat about their life.
Fascinating stories emerged, about past local traditions, world travel and interesting experiences, only a brief snippet of each person’s story is shown in their portrait. People enjoyed being involved, in some cases it sparked conversations with family and friends about memories that had been almost forgotten.
Many local people saw the portraits at the Arts Festival. We left a comments book for visitors to let us know what they thought. Here are some of the comments:
‘fantastic, original idea for capturing precious stories’
‘brilliant original idea – excellent!’
‘lovely summaries of great, ordinary folk’
‘really interesting to read people’s journeys through life’
This work was done as part of Plan P, exploring ways to promote connections and prevent isolation for older people. We know that the most effective approaches are those that involve older people themselves in planning and delivering activities. A fundamental principle is: ‘do with’ rather than ‘do for’. This recognises older people as assets. They bring many resources: experience, time, care, sense of humour, local knowledge and social and family networks. In addition, when older people become involved in supporting their community, they are also building their own networks and resilience.
The Inkwell portraits show some of the assets that local older people contribute. Their memories can enrich the whole community. Building a stronger sense of connection helps build resilience and having a strong network of supportive connections can protect against loneliness and isolation at any age.
So what next for Inkwell? The Abercrombie Group, would like a book of portraits! We plan to hold a celebration event for everyone involved and we hope that other community groups might be interested in using the portraits. We also want to inspire others to think about ways of bringing people together to share memories or experiences and show how much community members are valued.
You can see the portraits at this link IRISS Inkwell
If you have any comments about Plan P or Inkwell, or want to know more, we’d love to hear from you, please get in touch.