During 2024, in an immensely difficult financial and political climate we are delighted to see CADA begin to find its place within the creative ageing sector in England with partners from academia, voluntary, arts and culture sectors.
Under our leadership we believe that it is vital that CADA becomes a beacon for under-represented communities and artists aged 60+. They need not only to tell their stories but have them heard, and to be able to influence the policies that affect them as citizens, currently and in the future.
Highlights for us during 2024 include recruiting four highly experienced diverse older artists out of 50 applications. Many applicants reported on the ageism that they experience and how welcome it is to have an organisation such as CADA to support them and echo their voice. Our four RUPT associates – will do just that, disrupt our thinking and challenge the status quo. The RUPT associates are influencing our new manifesto and will deliver a range of strategic creative projects for CADA. Our co-created event in July at The Whitworth in Manchester ‘For Passion & Practice’ opened with their collaborative poem, performed to open the event which began: “What if the art of the possible begins with a question?’
Funding for older people in under-represented communities, e.g. South Asian, Caribbean and other diaspora groups, is scarce. In addition, art activities are often invisible to them, as they are themselves invisible to mainstream provision, or designated ‘hard to reach’. As our research for Visionaries: A South Asian arts and ageing counter narrative identified:
- Programming work that can resonate with South Asian communities is important, especially if they are not currently attending these spaces
- Programming ambitious South Asian arts and culture can attract audiences from all cultural backgrounds and connect older people with a shared history of place, work and community
- Artists can emerge at a later stage in life, their creative interests having been discouraged in their youth, aspirations hijacked by life experiences, lack of money or simply never having had the opportunity to learn skills and develop artistic expression.
From 2024-25 our new radical creative Living Labs are exploring the barriers to creative participation by older under-represented communities who experience ‘a raft of health, access and resource barriers’.
It is our hope that these Labs will enable partners to establish new regular opportunities for older people in their areas and that the insights gained from hearing their lived experiences will influence strategic and systemic change across a range of sectors including transport, health, and culture.
We are determined to do what it says in our name – ‘Creative Ageing: Development & Agency’. Agency must be at the very heart of all our work for present and future generations of older people and older creatives.
We hope you will join us, watch our journey and our voice grow from strength to strength as we celebrate our collective creative ageing.
Creative Ageing: Development & Agency 