Contemporary visual art and Identity construction – wellbeing
amongst older people
AHRC Cultural value project Andrew Newman and Anna Goulding
Contents
• Description of project – Aims and data collection
• Analysis and results – what engagement with Contemporary visual art does for people
• The intrinsic / instrumental debate
Description of project
• Funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme – 2 year project
• Follow-on fund grant from ESRC for Knowledge transfer 1 year
Aims and data collection
• To explore the relationships between older people’s engagement with contemporary visual art, identity construction and sense of wellbeing
• 7 pre-existing groups – with and without prior engagement – visited three over a 2 year period.
• 4 venues – Contemporary visual art galleries in NE England
Analysis and results
• Role of art in identity processes for older people – Existing work on the role of cultural property –
meanings that become embedded
– Identity revision and maintenance (Kroger 2002) important for the wellbeing of older people
Analysis and results
• links to aspects of identity prompted through encounters with the art works
Analysis and results
• Strong mutual support amongst some groups enables them to overcome major psychosocial barriers that would otherwise have prevented engagement.
Analysis and results
• Those with a pre-existing engagement with art used the experience to deepen their engagement with the field.
Analysis and results
• A positive self image created through engagement – feedback from environment
The intrinsic / instrumental debate
• Impossible to see in the responses of participants
• Appears in the work of Vesteim (1994)
• What is core to the experience of engagement with art and what is not?