Connecting Through Culture is a co-produced research project that explores how and why we take part in arts and culture as we get older. We are interested in how participation in all forms of arts and culture, particularly those accessed digitally, can influence our wellbeing and feelings of social connection as we age.
School of Education's Professor Helen Manchester and the Connecting Through Culture As We Age project features in one of eight new video case studies created to raise the profile of the fantastic work emerging from the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge. See the film here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgwfEp_tObE
The project also features in the report ‘Our Story so far: Healthy Ageing Challenge report 2022 https://www.ukri.org/publications/our-story-so-far-healthy-ageing-challenge-report-2022/
Connecting through Culture is a co-produced research project that explores how and why we take part in arts and culture as we get older. The project is interested in how participation in all forms of arts and culture, particularly those accessed digitally, can influence our wellbeing and feelings of social connection as we age.
The project arose as a response to four issues that impact the wellbeing of older people:
- Digital exclusion and social isolation
- arts and cultural participation dropping dramatically in older populations, particularly amongst disabled, and racially and socioeconomically minoritised people
- inequalities relating to accessibility and content of digital arts and cultural provision
- the need to put older people at the centre of the design of services, technologies, products and experiences.
The project is led by Dr Helen Manchester (School of Education), alongside an interdisciplinary research team that stretches across the arts and humanities, social and policy studies, health sciences, and computer science and human computer interaction. The team are working alongside a group of 20 disabled, socioeconomically and racially minoritised older adults who play an active role in the project as ‘co-researchers’. In 2021 we drew on creative and digital methods, working with the co-researchers to understand what they enjoy in their day-to-day lives, their social connections, experiences of digital participation, and engagement with arts and cultural activities. In 2022, the co-researchers work in collaboration with community partners, artists and creative technologists, to co-design and develop digital cultural products
The three-year project started in 2021. It’s based at the University of Bristol and funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Healthy Ageing Challenge programme.
For more information please see https://connectingthroughcultureasweage.info/