Combining Reminiscence Therapy with Film and Photography, we work with patients to produce short documentary films or digital artworks to help review and celebrate their lives, achievements and relationships. At a time when it is so easy to become focused upon the next meal, the next injection or the next blood pressure reading, our aim is to reinforce the patient’s individuality and personal identity, and to help them find an enjoyable new artistic expression, possibly for the first time in their lives.
Our overriding objective in this work is to give a voice to people in circumstances that normally deprive them of the opportunity of talking about anything other than death. In our hospice work already undertaken, patients have expressed enormous satisfaction at having taken part and in the cases of those who have since passed on, their relatives have spoken of their profound gratitude at having been left with something so sensitive and personal. Our work is therefore not only engaging the patients themselves but also helping those grieving around them, whose long-term pain is often overlooked.
We truly believe that it is possible to use the creative arts to help the sick and bereaved to resolve and make sense of the issue of death.
