The Photobook Project

A creative framework which invites individuals to document their own, shared narratives through photography, book-making and other media.

Ellie has delivered this project to various groups of people living with dementia, as well as groups with an intergenerational focus. This project invites the participants to be the illustrators of their own narratives, providing them with self-evidence that they are living well with their dementia, enhancing their self-confidence, feelings of connectivity and artistic skillset.

Ellie hopes to extend the invitation to complete this project to more groups, to create an online book archive which captures people living well with dementia.

There are three book collections so far and they are titled:

“Hello Neighbour!”

An artist in residence at Humanitas Deventer, a care home where students live for free to support older people in the community. Funded by the Arts Council’s International Development Fund, 2018.

Humanitas is world-renowned for it’s unique, intergenerational approach to supporting older people and its implentation of innovative environmental design to suit the older generations. “Hello Neighbour” is a collaborative art project between Ellie and her neighbour Joke, over the period of 3 weeks in Sep 2018. Each day, the pair chose a theme and documented their days with this constraint in mind: for example, the colour blue, light and food. The project sensitively depicts the unique and tender relationship between Ellie and Joke, as well as the wider community of Humanitas and the surrounding areas - situated in a bustling neighbourhood, Humanitas is connected to it’s local community.

“Hello Neighbour” has resulted in a collection of 21 photo-based books of A5 size, with smaller A6 books inside of them containing further documentation with various media: including pressed flowers, maps, paintings and texture rubbings.

In July 2019 student Sores Duman and manager Peter Daniels will be speaking at Ellie & Sally (see ‘Passing the Parcel’) conference at Falmouth Unviersity in July 2019 titled “Only Connect!”: A community symposium of creative intergenerational practice.

Observations by the Happy Wanderers

The Happy Wanderers are a dementia-friendly walking group set up by the Sensory Trust in 2014. The group meet for a weekly walk in the St. Austell, Cornwall area every Wednesday. Each week the group were asked to chose a theme and to document their walks with this theme in mind. Themes included: shadows, green, picnic and sound.

Observations in Nature, with the Sensory Trust

Inspired by Ellie’s MA project with the Happy Wanderers, the Sensory Trust were awarded funding from the Arts Council to roll out the project with their other 4 dementia-friendly nature-based groups. These books will be displayed at Potager garden on 25th February - 1st March 2019.

Observations by Ashridge Field School, with Amy Goodwin.

An intergenerational art school run annually in rural Devon. The group selected a theme for each day and documented under these themes for the week period. Ellie and Amy also ran Oulipo writing workshops which connected to the theme. These writings are captured in smaller A6 books within the A5 photo-books. The themes:

A. rtists
S. ky
H. ouses
R. esting
I. nner spaces
D. ogs
G. ates
E. ating

Coming soon

Observations by Walking into Art: a group of people living with dementia who meet in ancient woodland in Cambridgeshire, UK.

In September 2019 Ellie will be completing her residency “Pass the baton!” with Run Tomorrow; a relay running race with people living with dementia and their carers in Japan. To read more about this project, visit: http://runtomorrow.jp/en/. This will be funded by Daiwa Foundation.

Ellie Robinson - Carter

Ellie
Robinson -
Carter