Mariana’s Song Teesside Tour
It’s the Monday morning after our first care home residency in Saltburn and the first time that I [Poppy] have spent a full week in a single care home. Over the weekend, my mind has continually drifted back to it, reliving what a beautiful experience it was. I still feel taken aback by some of the interactions, and it’s quite emotional to think about some of the moments of joy and connection that occurred in the little space that we created for Mariana’s Song over the week.
I was supported by Gemma, an artist in training, and we saw a total of 24 residents on a 1-1 basis over the week. Marianas Song is participant-led, so each engagement was unique. We worked closely with the care home activities coordinator to prioritise residents who are generally the least engaged with the care home activities program as those who might benefit most from 1-1 engagement tailored to older people with advanced dementia. There were SO many moments that struck me over the week, but I’ve picked 3 that stood out to for risk of writing an entire novel worth!
One thing that stands out, was the importance of presence and how giving someone undivided attention seems to bring about a richness to the activity. In care homes (and the world in general) rushing and to-do list ticking seem an inevitable part of life. But Marian’s Song disrupts this, by providing gentle stimulation and a sense of drifting between moments of curiosity with no time constraints. As the facilitator in the space, I have no agenda around what should happen in there, there is no particular end point, correct order or expected response to anything. We just see what happens and respond in the moment.
Some residents provided verbal feedback, where they commented that they couldn’t believe it what a treat it was. There seemed to be an instant positive reaction as they learned that we were in no rush, and we could be there was long as we liked. It was beautiful and moving to see how people were responding to limitless attention.
Secondly, I was stuck by how we were able to slip between reality and imagination. We’ve been banging on about ‘slipping into the imaginary world’ with older people living with dementia now since 2016. We are two passionate practitioners, and for anyone who has ever had a conversation with us about our work, will have probably heard us describe this in relation to our storytelling work in care homes. If you’re lucky enough to have avoided our acclaims until now, we’re essentially describing a moment within a storytelling workshop where all members of the group are relating to each other through an imaginary world that we have created together and as a result, there is no right or wrong answer. Through this, there is a freeing feeling that comes with having the pressure of remembering lifted and people can relate to one another.
During the residency, there were moments where I could feel a shift in the way that residents were engaging with the experience. For example, there were times where residents were exploring the cold and the way they were responding to the cold with playful vocalisations and laughter, could be compared to the noisy joy of jumping waves at the beach. There was another lovely moment where a resident was exploring the warmth prop as Mariana was warming up by the fire on the projection. We had created a smoky ‘fire’ with smells and sounds and we were lighting it with a flashing red torch. For several minutes, we stayed in this moment while the resident went into a story about standing at the top of a cliff, overlooking a beach where someone had started a fire. I don’t know if it was a memory or they were interpreting it in the moment, it doesn’t matter either way. The point is, there was a real sense of being right there as she was shouting down to the ‘people below’.
Mariana’s Song is aimed at people with advanced dementia and is made to be interpreted differently by each person. Last week, there was one resident who came in and remained standing for the whole time they were there (the only resident to do so). Our wonderful facilitator in training, Gemma was leading, so I was watching from the back. Throughout the engagement, the resident used very little verbal communication and Gemma left space for the resident to explore the installation independently. He seemed to be most interested in the installation itself, testing the sturdiness of the table, checking out the finish on the props and the structure of the space. He organised the items on the table and was folding bits of fabric ‘seaweed’ up like sandpaper to use on the surfaces. After about 20 minutes of moving around the space, he decisively left the space with a piece of ‘seaweed’ that he’d been using as sandpaper and the engagement finished. We later found out that this resident is often found wandering and rummaging through rooms. I thought it was cool that on this occasion, he’d stumbled across a room with lots of different stimulus to explore and that no one was there to try and direct how he should use the space and what he could take. Gemma was just there with him, exploring the stuff inside the space, as a pair.
This residency was the first of 4. We’ll be off to Redcar and Middlesbrough next!
We can’t wait to share Mariana’s Song with more older people.
Thanks for reading, Poppy.
