Stockport Arts & Health

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Case Studies - Older People
Stockport Arts & Health

“a wonderful session in which nothing short of a miracle happened” - Staff Nurse

Stockport Arts & Health has promoted the arts in hospitals and communities since 1993, creating a cultural climate for good health by bringing together artists, local people and service users in the making of art for health service and community settings, and for personal creative development.

It’s a Rap (Reminiscence Arts Project)/Lost Found Time
Poems made from memories are lost time that’s been found again.

For several years, (the project now covers three Stockport NHS sites, engaging rehabilitation, respite, continuing care and psychiatry wards) older people in Stockport have been making poetry and art. The poems have been made by writing down memories, then cutting them up with scissors and arranging them into new shapes, new thoughts, often collaboratively, with a helper. Cutting memories up with scissors seems appropriate to a hospital; it’s word surgery and the patient directs the operation.

Hundreds of poems and artworks were made using experimental techniques combining text and visual art.

Stockport Arts & Health’s work with older people has been selected by the Invest to Save Arts in Health Research project, a two year programme exploring the impact of creativity on the wellbeing of patients.

It’s a RAP has been cited by the Cabinet Office as a successful measure against social exclusion. Lost Found Time was exhibited at The House of Commons in October 2005.

“You open people’s hearts; we want to give – you only need to unlock the key.”