Care(less) is a new 360° film work by artist Lindsay Seers. Using a combination of lens based and digital 360° images, viewed within a virtuality headset, Seers explores the hallucinatory and embodied effect of VR.
In this, her first work using virtual reality technology, visitors can experience what it might feel like to
be in the body of another person – that of an older person whose aged body may not reflect the person
inside and who may be facing challenges in health, abilities and relationships.
Care(less) and its accompanying texts and programme of talks, film screenings and activities investigate
prevalent attitudes to ageing, the nature of care relationships and ways in which the social care system
meets care needs.
The artwork and the exhibition programme respond to current research funded by Wellcome Trust being
undertaken by the University of Brighton, the University of Birmingham and University of Lincoln. The
research is a collaboration between academic researchers, older people, and social care organisations
looking at the experiences of older people receiving care which they pay for themselves.
The exhibition, also funded by the Wellcome Trust under their Research Enrichment programme,
specifically aims to bring academic research to a wider public audience. The research teams have worked
with arts partners Fabrica, Ikon gallery and Threshold (who produce Frequency Festival in Lincoln
biennially), to create the commission which was awarded to Lindsay Seers via an open call.
Care(less) will be presented at Fabrica, Brighton between 5 October and 24 November, at Frequency Festival, Lincoln from 24 -27 October and subsequently at Ikon gallery, Birmingham from 15 – 23 February 2020.
Lindsay Seers’s work came to the fore in Nicolas Bourriaud’s Tate Triennial 2009 with Extramission 6, a work now in the Tate collection. Her installation works, often complex and verging on the ineffable follow a process that aspires to unearth experiences relating to the fragmentary nature of human consciousness.
The research Older people: care and self-funding experiences is collaborative project and based in ‘co- production’. In each site academic researchers are working with co-researchers who are older citizens with an interest in ageing and the issues affecting older people. The co-researchers have been trained in all aspects of research and work with the academics on the research design, data collection, analysis and interpretation and dissemination. The research teams are also working with representatives from local organisations, such as Local Authority Adult Social Care managers and practitioners and third sector care providers in ‘knowledge exchange’ groups. These meet regularly throughout the project to share emergent themes from the research and create a space for discussing these from a range of perspectives on self- funding. The project which runs until July 2020 will be producing a range of materials for policy and practice and for older people, their family members and informal carers. For more information about the project contact:
Prof Mo Ray, MRay@lincoln.ac.uk
www.olderpeopleselffundingcare.com/