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?