The Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht, Catherine Martin T.D. announced the launch of a new partnership between the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Creative Ireland. The partnership is focused on expanding arts programming for older people as we deal with the impact of cocooning and social distancing measures in this challenging time for older communities.
This new partnership seeks to address some of the challenges around cocooning and social distancing by enabling access to meaningful cultural encounters and art experiences, both at home and in residential settings. This new programme includes:
1. Collaborations with Nursing Home Activity Coordinators
Many of IMMA’s visitor engagement team have completed Age & Opportunity’s Creative Exchanges course alongside nursing home activity coordinators. IMMA will pair visitor engagement team members with nursing home activity coordinators for support, ideas and remote activity facilitation. This will provide a valuable support to staff in nursing homes and residential facilities who have been through the most challenging time of their careers.
2. Digital and physical remote engagement resources, including:
A: Slow-looking IMMA Collection videos
This series of accessible (captioned, audio-described) videos will invite viewers to take a relaxed moment with a guided exploration of a selected artwork from the IMMA collection. Videos will be directly available to nursing home activity coordinators in residential facilities through networks such as Nursing Homes Ireland, Alzheimer Society of Ireland services and IMMA’s website and social media channels.
B: Armchair Azure
Dementia-inclusive live Azure tours delivered via Zoom and available to people living with dementia, their families, friends and professional carers, provided on a scheduled monthly basis for individuals and bookable on-demand for nursing home groups. Azure is a programme that aims to make art galleries and museums around Ireland dementia-friendly spaces. The tours will be delivered in collaboration with the Alzheimer Society of Ireland and promoted through the HSE Dementia Understand Together Network.
C: Collection Conversations Resource Packs
All of IMMA’s programming for older audiences encourages discussions where participants share their thoughts on IMMA artworks. These printed resource packs will highlight selected work from the IMMA collection. The resource packs include high-quality reproductions of selected artworks with an accompanying series of conversational prompts, giving participants a structure for exploring artworks. These conversational prompts can be followed alone, with family and friends, or used by activity coordinators within nursing homes or other residential settings with residents. These resources will be distributed through IMMA partnerships such as Age & Opportunity’s Cultural Companions and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland.
For more information, visit IMMA.ie and please contact Bairbre-Ann or Ciara via email at edcommbooking@imma.ie or phone 01 612 9955.
Source: Visual Artists Ireland News
