Dementia friends make political banners to show they want 'a life more ordinary'

A network of dementia support groups across the UK have taken to creating their own political banners to show they are still living fulfilling lives, have something to say and that they mean to be listened to.

Yorkshire DEEP and their banner

Photographer Ian Beasley is one of the artists in residence for the project and is its driving force. When he first embarked on the project he asked one man with dementia: “What would you like to get out of what we are doing?” The participant’s reply was simply, “I’d like to live a life more ordinary’.” This then became the title of the project.

Collaborating with local artists, poets, illustrators and photographers, the various groups designed the banners as an antidote to negative portrayals of dementia diagnosis in the popular press.

‘After shock of diagnosis, how do I cope?’

The banner artworks are part of the IDEAL project facilitated by Professor Linda Clare at Exeter University. She contacted Ian about four or five years ago to ask him to be its artist in residence.

The creative side of the project started out at a number of dementia support groups in Exeter, Kent, Oldham and Yorkshire. Ian says: “A lot of people said once they’d got over the shock of the diagnosis, it was then, how do I start to cope with it?

“All the people I have worked with lead good fulfilling lives, but it’s a case of developing coping strategies. And I also wanted to encourage people to… not to confront… that’s not the right word, but to say, ‘what’s the way forward?”

Ian McMillan and Tony Husband are the two other artists that lead on the project. The ideas behind the art are positive and pragmatic, showing dementia in a more positive light.

The support groups started doing small exhibitions and put together little books to give away free – about various things ‘that had come up’.

Ian says: “What we started looking at was the representation of dementia because a lot of representations of dementia in the popular press are very negative, very clichéd. It's lazy journalism.”

‘Demoralised’ dementia groups campaign for better facilities on public transport

Each group on the project has worked together on their respective banners to highlight things that are important to them whether that is more accessible travel, making new friends at a gardening club or whatever else is important to them in their day to day lives.

The approach to the project is one of collaboration, with people from the support groups coming up with the ideas they want and working on it with local artists and designers to reach a state of completion.

The Exeter banner Ian says: “We do two banners for each group. One is a portrayal of what it shouldn’t be and the other side is what it should be.”

Ian explains a bit more about how the banner project came into fruition. He says: “About 18 months ago, I did some work with a group which meets in York which is comprised of three Innovations in Dementia groups; one from Scarborough, one from York and one from Bradford, and they are called Yorkshire Deep, but they came together because they were concerned about the facilities on public transport for people with dementia."

Ultimately, Ian says: “They were campaigning because they were trying to get the public attention and they were a bit demoralised”.

In Oldham, at one of the places the group meet, there was an old trade union banner which everyone admired, and so Ian came up with the banners idea. He took this idea to the York group and said to them: “I tell you what, why don’t we make a big banner about it and unfurl it on York station?” And they said in response, “oh yeah, we love that idea!”

They set about creating a banner called ‘The right to a grand day out’ which had one side illustrating what was wrong with public transport on one side and on the other, what people with dementia would like it to be.

Political banners that were once used in trade union marches have become fashionable in recent years with popular artists such as Grayson Perry featuring them in their work. Their history dates back over a hundred years in this country, and there are certain traditions that go with them.

Friends on the dementia banner project Ian explains: “When you produce a banner traditionally you always have an unfurling ceremony and some of these ceremonies would have been quite lavish affairs, but normally the banner would have been rolled up and there would be a person pulling the ribbon for it to be unfurled, and there would have been a dedication.

"Ian McMillan has written a poem for ours, called the unfurling which he reads, and we have a brass band fanfare and then the banner unfurls.”

‘We got permission to unfurl the banner on York station’

In Exeter the group there made a banner that represented the budding friendships that had grown out of running an allotment together.

Martyn Rogers, Age UK Exeter’s chief executive, said “It has been fantastic for the project to have the input of three such great creative talents. Together they have looked, listened and reflected the difference our Budding Friends service makes to lives of its members and have created this remarkable banner as a lasting reminder of the fun, joy and shared support the project offers.”

Anne, 73, is carer to her husband Clive, 77, who has vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

Clive said: “The allotment is great fun. It’s a fantastic community and that support is really important. At first I wasn’t too sure about the idea of the banners, but it’s really grown on me and I’m so impressed!”

Anne said: “We really look forward to coming to the allotment. It’s getting together with other people who know what you’re going through. There’s a lot of laughter, and that’s reflected in these wonderful banners.”

One of the things that most surprised Ian about the York project was the amount of support that came from station staff, local cafes and the general public, all of whom were complete strangers but who identified with the project, because they have had dementia in their own lives in some way.

Ian says: “We got permission to unfurl the banner on York station in the rush hour and we got a brass band and one of the bars lent us a load of chairs so we could sit down. Then all the press turned up, and it wasn’t just local press, it was the BBC who turned up, and ITV turned up.

“Loads of people going to catch the trains became interested and came over to ask what it was all about; it was a very successful intervention because they actually got to support people coping with dementia.”