GOALS: the collective action and aim of “Handkind” is to challenge social stigma and help improve the quality of life for people with dementia through arts participation across the globe.
Handkind will consist of workshops and an event to create the collective artwork and ellicit a wider discussion to support people living with dementia and encourage arts participation. The artwork and event will incorporate: photography, film, music, storytelling, painting, and other mediums. Through responsible social transformation, and taking inspiration from Arte Povera, the event will instigate a future artistic exchange between people living with dementia in the UK and Italy, then Brazil and further-a-field.
Scientific studies have demonstrated there are more nerve connectors between the brain and the hands than any other part of the human body. This connection between the hand and the brain and the creative act is pertinent to this project. Human beings subconciously express many emotions, thoughts and feelings with their hands, such as love, anger, stress, fear or affection.
What is so unique to the human species is that we not only use our hands to communicate and express ourselves, but to perform such a variety of daily tasks: such as preparing food, cleaning, dressing ourselves, and brushing our teeth. Or to create works of art, drive vehicles, write letters, build houses, perform brain surgery, and play musical instruments. We use them to care for our loved ones, both young and old, or defend ourselves from an attacker. But in the words of one 93 year old participant, “We take our hands for granted.”
It has been demonstrated that by participating in the arts, people living with dementia can live a more enriched and fulfilling life, with relief from confusion and anxiety. The creative part of the brain remains intact right until the later stages of the disease. Hester will develop this project with film, painting, I-pad art, haptics, words, drawing, music, photography, love, curiosity and kindness….
Raymond Tallis a huge inspiration for this project sums up the hand perfectly in The Hand: A Philosophical Inquiry into Human Being-from his Handkind trilogy: “This hand – this professor of grasping, seizing, pulling, plucking, picking, pinching, pressing, patting, poking, prodding, fumbling, squeezing, crushing, throttling, punching, rubbing, scratching, groping, stroking, caressing, fingering, drumming, shaping, lifting, flicking, catching, throwing and much else besides – is the master tool of human life.”