North London Treasure

25 Apr 16:

Steampunk Bob has had another project these past ten weeks, connecting the pupils of Eden Primary School with the residents of Lady Sarah Cohen House. This time I was steampunk artist in residence at the home rather than the school, working with the residents there, some of whom are living with dementia.

I started out exploring things the residents treasured in their lives: music they loved - singing along to Accordion Karaoke. We looked at their professions and showed archive film footage of various jobs the residents held. We looked at their dream destinations, transporting them through green screen and live feed: Harold said he’s always dreamed of going to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Jack wanted to walk the Scottish Highlands, and Renie asked to go to a Jewish wedding in the East End one more time. Each resident was then serenaded by an appropriate song (The Lion Sleeps, Mull of Kintyre & Hava Nagila above), with everyone joining in. Loads of fun.

Then we invited the children of Eden School along for the second half of the project. Eden school has a permanent artist-in-residence, Laura Fox, who helped make this happen, and what great kids they were. Using Treasure Questions, we gathered stories from the residents - some true, some aspirational, some just fun. In the final session, the pupils performed the residents’ stories.

Geoff said his dream accomplishment would be helping Arsenal win the Premiere League, so we recreated a last minute goal in slow motion, where a young midfielder Geoff passing to Alexi Sanchez who scores an overhead bicycle kick…

Sippy talked about a time she felt treasured, when she won a song writing competition to create a jingle for London, and was flown to New York City where it was recorded and put out on radio. We created an X-Factor scenario where a young Sippy, played by Noah, mimed to her real voice, and each judge gave him a “10” and said “You’re Going To New York!”

We created Hettie’s story of a little mouse who creeps into her room and cleans it while she’s asleep, Irene’s story of dancing at the Phonograph Club in Manchester to the groovy Len Barry song “1,2,3”.

Finally, Len shares a Birthday with the Queen, so we had a party for them both. He asked for the guests to be his sister Zena, the Prime Minister and Ghandi, and the roles were taken by Eve, Tai, Felicity and Noah again, with Ken playing Len.

It’s both exciting and moving and to watch these two groups of people, from opposite sides of life, interact with each other. There are little if any preconceptions, everyone is taken at face value, everyone is accepted for who they are. Young children do this naturally - they are constantly coming across new situations, and a visit to a care home with older people who speak slowly or repeat things or fall asleep is just another new situation. On the first day, one of the mothers accompanying the group said that her son was nervous about meeting someone with dementia. The son was 6 years old and didn’t have a concept of what dementia was - he was absolutely fine, talking away and playing along the whole time. It was the mother who was nervous. And it’s understandable. I was nervous the first time I interacted in a care home, too - with the innovative consultancy Ladder to the Moon. That’s because we don’t want to offend, we’re not sure how to behave. Working in this environment has helped me to learn to be present, and to not get caught up in how I’m perceived, in doing the right thing. There is no ‘right’ thing. There’s just being yourself, being kind, engaging and enjoying the people around you. And that’s what I saw the pupils and residents do, with gusto.

The day after the project finished, we were invited to the school for an assembly where Sippy gave a talk. She said she is a former artist with a house full of materials that she would like to donate to the school. It was a fantastic end to the project, and a firm friendship has been established: the Eden School has agreed to send along pupils on a new project reading with Lady Sarah Cohen Residents in the next term.  (Thanks to Naomi Creeger from Jewish Care for the photographs.)