What's on as part of Creative Age Challenge 2018?

Creative Age Challenge 2018 launches this weekend with a host of artistic activities taking place across the UK and Italy.

The campaign celebrates creativity in dementia and the community and looks to raise awareness and funding for further dementia-friendly creative opportunities.

We’re kicking off the campaign on June 2 with our free 100 Word Story Chain Challenge. Get involved by clicking here and have a go at continuing the digital story.

Other challenges taking pace this month include:

• Arts Centre Washington’s Creative Age group, Singing in the Rain, creating a large textile banner to reflect the thoughts of the group on creativity and their neighbourhood. The group have also created a collective piece of permanent artwork for the arts centre which will previewed at the centre on June 8.

• The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, are working on a postal art exchange between the gallery’s Creative Age participants and the ‘In the Moment’ group at Abbot Hall in Kendal. They’ll be creating postcard sized artworks inspired by the Kirt Schwitters collections and the Merz Bahn Wall connection between the Lake District and Newcastle.  Participants from each venue, including schools and gallery groups, are welcome to use collage, printmaking, and paint to create and post their Schwitters interpretations.  Postcards will be posted between galleries raising funds through a blend of print sales and sponsoring of postcard journeys.

The next session, open to all, will be held at the Hatton Gallery on June 7 from 2pm – 4pm.

• The Drawn Together dementia-friendly group at The Customs House in South Shields have set themselves the target of creating 500 circular drawings which will be exhibited on their gallery wall from June 7 at 6pm. Following the event the drawings will be turned into coaster sized artworks for sale.

• The Dolphin Project at An Talla Solais in Ullapool will be creating A Shoal of Silver Darlings inspired by the herring trade associated with the Scottish coastline. They aim to create a shoal of fish and associated artworks including tea towels and greetings cards which can be sold at a market stall at the annual Round the Pier Day in Ullapool. The project will commence in June with the final Round the Pier exhibition and sales taking place on July 14.

• In association with Creative Age Challenge, Chichester Festival Theatre is joining with arts venues across the UK to run a week of creativity and community from June 2 – June 9. A range of events, including free dementia and family-friendly activities will be on offer, including an Ageless Singing session, and a community poetry writing event for all ages.

• Responding to Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid’s current show at BALTIC ‘Our Kisses are Petals’ the dementia-friendly 7 Bridges Creative Age group at BALTIC will be exploring themes of identity and personal voice culminating in a community event. The group will also work with The Drive School and Wood Green Sheltered Housing in Gateshead to collectively create their own large-scale textile banners to form part of a community-focused outdoor performance on Sunday, July 29.

• “Tracks” by the Museo di Preistoria Paolo Graziosi in Florence, Italy, is a Creative Age Challenge exploring the universal language of their tracks, left by the hands of people living with dementia from across Florence. Participants will be exploring the museum’s collection of findings and artefacts to inspire their own mark making techniques using the medium of “clay cloth”. The resulting clay sculptures will be converted into temporary tattoos, exhibited on June 4 and available to purchase at the museum bookshop upon donation.

• Horse Riding project at the Marino Marini Museum in Tuscany has been inspired by the internationally famous bronze, Horse and Rider (1952-53), by Sculptor Marino Marini. Over the last month the museum have undertaken workshops in residential care homes and Alzheimer's Cafès to create new community-based interpretations of the bronze.  The final Clay art-lab event will take place on Friday, June 8, with sculptures sold at Auction in Autumn 2018.

• Abbot Hall at Lakeland Arts will be hosting a Creative Age Cartoon Challenge in October 2018 informed by the upcoming Lakes International Comic Art Festival and this Autumn’s Westmorland Gazette exhibition at Abbot Hall. Lakeland Arts ‘In the Moment’ dementia-friendly group will be working with local writers, illustrators and cartoonists to create an installation within the Comic Art Festival in October 12- October 14.