Visionaries

culture champs

June 2025 – Advent of Ageing poem by The RUPT Associates

o mark #AgeWithoutLimitsDay, CADA’s RUPT Associates – Maya Chowdhry, Amanda Holiday, and Sama Hunt- have created a radical new poem.

Written and recorded by these underserved, underrepresented artists, the piece is a powerful call to rethink ageing – not as decline, but as transformation.

“The advent of ageing begins… with a question.”

This lyrical manifesto invites us to reflect, and to see older age not as retreat, but as a place of emergence.

April 2025. two event attendances

Elizabeth – University of Westminster – This event focuses on the involvement of people from diverse communities in creative arts research initiatives.

David – The Stage Future of Theatre Conference at @sohoplace – A forward-looking discussion on the future of theatre, with insights into innovation, sustainability, and audience development.

Radical Creative Ageing Fanzines

Oct 1 2025 – WHAT NEXT? Creative Ageing in Barrow & Beyond Opening Day & Summit.

We’re delighted that CADA Trustee Arti Prashar @artipics35 is speaking at today’s WHAT NEXT? Creative Ageing in Barrow & Beyond Opening Day & Summit.

Marking the International Day of Older Person #idop2025 and as part of BarrowFull’s commitment to action research and learning about excellent community engagement, guests from around the UK and world convene in Barrow Town Hall to discuss, present and reflect on past and current Creative Ageing Work, the work of older artists, and ask what’s next, here and elsewhere for older people engaging with the arts, including older artists.

Speakers:
@theperformanceensemble
Alan Lyddiard & members of the Ensemble

Raisa Karttunen – Armas Festival in Finland & iCAN!

Professor Yoko Hayashi – Arts Alive! in Japan

Maria Trost – Intergenerational Theatre-Making Sweden

Bill Morrison, The Simpsons, Futurama – Interview and Q&A chaired by Julie Tait, Director of Lakes International Comic Arts Festival

Kate Parkin – Arts Council England’s new Creative Ageing Peer-Learning Programme

CADA’s Arti Prashar brought the provocations to yesterday’s launch of What Next? Creative Ageing in Barrow & Beyond; a week of creative activity for older people running this week in Barrow.

Her speech ended with these wonderful words:
Let us talk and disagree.
Let us exchange stories and experiences across generations,
Let us impart our wisdoms and histories.
Let us dance together,
Let us sing together,
Let us create together,
Let us share food together.
Let our laughter guide us.
Let us as creative people show the way to a more peaceful world.

Creative Ageing Symposium on 30th April – 1st May.2025

We’re thrilled to announce that CADA Co-Chair Arti Prashar will be one of the keynote speakers at the Creative Ageing Symposium on 30th April – 1st May.

This two-day event brings together creative practitioners, health professionals, and academic leaders to share innovative practices and explore key challenges and opportunities within the Creative Ageing sector.

It promises to be an inspiring and thought-provoking gathering!

Check it out – Link in bio

https://dukeslancaster.org/whats-on/theatre/better-than-the-alternative-symposium-day1

April 2025 – Creative Ageing – The Directory from The Baring Foundation

The Baring Foundation are delighted to share a new Directory of mainly arts organisations in the UK with an ongoing and targeted creative offer for older people.

There are over 250 organisations included, organised geographically for easy access.

CADA Creative Ageing; Development & Agency are proud to be included.

The Directory is intended for arts organisations looking for peers, care homes and older people’s organisations looking for arts partners, and older people themselves who might be looking for a creative activity. Funders and policy-makers may also get a sense of where there are gaps in provision.

Take a look at the Directory here:

https://baringfoundation.org.uk/resource/creative-ageing-the-directory/

8th October 2025 509 Arts

For the first time in human history, we have reached a critical mass of people living over three score years and ten.

There are now more people in the UK aged over 65 than there have ever been, forming nearly 20% of the total population, whilst the over 50 population is currently estimated to be 38% (Centre for Ageing Better). The older age groups are growing faster with people aged 85 and over projected to double by 2047 to 3.3 million, or 4.3% of the population.
(Source: 509 Arts Website)

Friday 10 October at 3pm
The New Demographic – Burden or Blessing?

Cuppa T – a series of conversations about creativity and ageing taking place on the set of Life Class. Company members will be joined by guest panelists to discuss themes that have emerged during the development of the production.

Panelists include: Life Class Cast and Chorus, Balbir Singh of Arts Council England’s Creative Ageing Peer Network Steering Group, Elizabeth Lynch MBE, co-chair of Creative Ageing: Development and Agency
Chaired by Alan Dix

Tickets are free and can be reserved using this link
https://bradford2025.co.uk/event/cuppa-t/

Find out more about our Co-Chair Elizabeth Lynch here: https://cadaengland.org/about-us/

Produced by 509 Arts in collaboration with BCB Radio.

April 2025 Living Labs. David Amigoni – Warm Welcome

Legislative Theatre Performance in Stoke

Carnival Flag-Making in Thameside

January 2025 – Historic England

Podcast. Evaluation Event. Website

he Banbury Heritage Project empowered older, underrepresented communities to take the lead in shaping their own historic spaces.

From art to storytelling, discover the project’s incredible creative outcomes!

Listen to the new podcast series & watch the event film: Radical Creative Ageing Evaluation featuring Supersum, Emma McDowell from @centreforculturalvalue and Victoria Hume from @culturehealthwellbeingalliance

Visit http://www.creativelaterlife.com

June 2025 – Joining ICAN

Join the International Creative Ageing Network (iCAN!) at its first meeting.

The Baring Foundation (UK) and Kaapeli in Finland are piloting a new informal and virtual network for international creative ageing (iCAN).

iCAN is open to anyone, anywhere in the world, with an interest in arts and culture for older people (creative ageing): including arts organisations, artists and practitioners, social care practitioners, care/residential home staff, researchers, local and national policy-makers.

iCAN will host an online meeting with key speakers from different countries twice a year. Meetings will be in English.

The first meeting will be on 13 October, 2-3:30pm UK time. If you’d like to attend this and future meetings of the network, and receive ad-hoc e-newsletters from iCAN, please sign up at:

https://baringfoundation.org.uk/sign-up-to-the-international-creative-ageing-network/

14th Nov 2024 – Event: Reaching out to be Global – Networking for Creative Practitioners across 5 nations.

Thursday 14th Nov 10am-12pm (UK time). Online (Free, registration essential). Link in bio

Are you a creative with an emerging or developed practice who is aged over 50?

Or maybe you deliver creative activities with those aged 50+?

Or maybe both?

Reaching Out To Be Global is a free online event for those working in the field of Creative Ageing who are keen to connect with others, share practice and explore international partnerships.

Over the course of two hours, you will hear from five creative practitioners who span different artforms, perspectives and countries. With an opportunity for networking and sharing your own ideas, this is the beginning of a conversation about what a new ‘International Centre for Creative Ageing’ could mean for the development of more international partnerships in the future.

Sign up via the link in our bio 👆

This event is a collaboration between Wales Arts Health and Wellbeing Network, Age Cymru (Wales), Creative Ageing: Development & Agency (England), Kaapeli (Finland), Arts Care (Northern Ireland), Age and Opportunity (Ireland).

Feb 2024 Creative Health Podcast

bonus episode of the #CreativeHealthPodcast by Laura Bailey about making London a Creative Health City. So many great interviews including CADA’s Co-Chair @nefertiti35 . https://londonartsandhealth.org.uk/story/london-creative-health-city-building-it-together/

Passion and Practice Event – July 2024

Join us for Radical Creative Ageing: Passion & Practice. An immersive gathering to explore ‘the art of the possible’.
The event is designed for those who have an opinion on what needs to happen right now to increase the authentic voice and visibility of older diverse creatives and communities.
A participatory experience, co-designed by our RUPT Associates, in partnership with The Whitworth and The Artivists.

Creative Ageing Conference 2023

Elizabeth spoke. CADA Co-Chair Elizabeth Lynch said “This is more than a project. We want to drive systemic change, which relies on increased voice and visibility, positive action and a change to business as usual” and detailed our three year plan. The conference was run by Equal Arts.

We supported with the directory.

November 2023 – Arts Play Health

Are you interested in arts, health, wellbeing, community and inclusion, play and creativity across the life course?

Join us and @OlderEnsemble – 29th Nov 4-5pm to discuss the voice and visibility of older artists.

We will facilitate a conversation exploring some of the opportunities and complexities of being an older creative practitioner in 2023 and how increasing the voice and visibility of older creatives might benefit us all.

Kindly hosted by Arts Play Health. Sign up 👇
https://www.artsplayhealth.com/chats

October 2023 – The Baring Foundation launched Creative Ageing: What Next? – a series of essays by different contributors on different issues.

We’re proud to highlight essays from CADA’s Co Chair Arti Prashar OBE, Director Farrell Renowden and former-Director Virginia Tandy OBE.

Take a look here:
https://baringfoundation.org.uk/resource/creative-ageing-what-next/

November 2023 – Arts Play Health

Are you interested in arts, health, wellbeing, community and inclusion, play and creativity across the life course?

Join us and @OlderEnsemble – 29th Nov 4-5pm to discuss the voice and visibility of older artists.

We will facilitate a conversation exploring some of the opportunities and complexities of being an older creative practitioner in 2023 and how increasing the voice and visibility of older creatives might benefit us all.

Kindly hosted by Arts Play Health. Sign up 👇
https://www.artsplayhealth.com/chats

Visionaries

Culture Champs

Audience Agencies – Older Audiences and Cultural Engagement in England – Nov 2021

Ageing Artfully Going Global – Event 2022

Mapping Community and Cultural Investment in Ageing 2021

Who we’ve helped

where should we put our speakers section and all the publications we’ve contributed to e.g. Barings Directory Barings CA report.