LoveFest Perth
LoveFest Perth was held in May 2018. It bought together people with dementia, their families and service providers to build further interest and support for creating dementia friendly communities and services. It achieved this by focusing the importance of love in the lives of people with dementia.
The LoveFest Perth Collection
The LoveFest Perth Collection captures the highlights from the LoveFest Perth event - to view the Collection click on the image below - or the link here. For a print version click the link here. Thanks also to David Sandoval Sandoval for graphic design of the resource. LoveFest is an initiative of the Museum of Love, part of the Celebrate Ageing Program. LoveFest was bought to Perth by GRAI with the support of the City of Melville and Alzheimer's WA and as well as: The Care Side, Hall and Prior Health and Aged Care Group, Chorus, SouthCare, Garden City Shopping Centre, Heart to Heart Connections, Consultivation and Lisa White, The Social Photographer.
Click the image below to view the Collection
Highlights
LoveFest Perth included a series of presentations by people with dementia, their families and friends to explore the importance of human connection, the challenges and strategies to address these. It also included an exhibition of portraits of local people with dementia kissing someone they love. Some of the photos taken by Lisa White, The Social Photographer are shared below.
In the section below we share some of LoveFest Perth highlights - including the video welcome by Hon Ken Wyatt AM, Federal Member for Hasluck in Western Australian and Minister for Aged Care and Indigenous Health.
In the section below we share some of LoveFest Perth highlights - including the video welcome by Hon Ken Wyatt AM, Federal Member for Hasluck in Western Australian and Minister for Aged Care and Indigenous Health.
Letters of Love & Dementia
On the 3rd May, the City of Melville hosted a presentations event that involved 17 people living with dementia and their family members sharing their experiences and strategies. The presenters were invited to write a letter to someone with dementia and share it as part of their presentation. We captured their Small Acts of Love as they were articulated and have included them in this collection alongside the letters written by presenters. The letters are included in the LoveFest Perth Collection and we have included a video of the beautiful letter by Krishan Shah to his grandmother below.
Small Acts of Love
People with dementia and their families shared their stories about the importance of love, the challenges dementia presents and their strategies to address these challenges. The strategies are what we call Small Acts of Love. Over the course of LoveFest we documented Small Acts of Love on a pieces of paper attached to helium balloons – and invited participants to interact with the installation. A summary of the Small Acts of Love are included in the LoveFest Perth Collection.
Belonging
A Belonging Workshop was facilitated by Dr Catherine Barrett and Iris Whitelock. The workshop began by exploring what belonging means to all workshop participants. Then, three people living with dementia shared their stories about what belonging means to them. After these stories, workshop participants were invited to reflect on connection and belonging through shared movement – or dance. The workshop finished by inviting participants to discuss barriers to belonging for people with dementia – and strategies to promote belonging. Read more about Belonging in the LoveFest Perth Collection.
Wu Tao
The Wu Tao Relaxation Workshop was facilitated by Emma Jack, a family carer, qualified Wu Tao Dance instructor and member of the 2016 Memory Bridge alumni. Emma’s vision is to provide creative and nurturing spaces for people with Dementia and their Carers to connect and enjoy life. The Wu Tao workshop was a combination of beautiful movement, self-massage and creative visualisations to bring balance, harmony and joy. Participated reported feeling peaceful and connected to others.
The Kiss Perth
The Kiss Exhibition is a collection of photographs of people with dementia kissing someone they love. The photos were taken by Lisa White, The Social Photographer and powerfully illustrate the importance of love in the lives of people with dementia. We are grateful to Garden City Shopping Centre for providing a shop space and signage for the exhibition. The Exhibition ran for two weeks and visitors shared the following responses to the Exhibition:
- The Exhibition is truly beautiful. Thank you to all who were involved in the creation and set up of this wonderful display. Warmest regard to all. Riley
- Everyone is smiling and you can see the LOVE! Andy and Alfie
- Absolutely beautiful J Thankyou!
- Wonderful! The more we see – the more we understand. Thankyou Jo
- Makes your heart sing to see such love
- Love the joy and emotion captured so beautifully. Thankyou xxx
- What a beautiful set of images capturing Love of family. K Wheatland X
- Beautiful, so moving. So pleased I found out about this Catherine! Iris
- Just wonderful. Made me cry. Memories of my mother. Loved it! Jo
- Amazing photos showing love. Thank you all for sharing
- A wonderfully ‘touching’ exhibition in many ways. Congratulations and thankyou to all participants. Lisa O’Malley M.L.A, Member for Bicton
- Love is in the air … and everywhere you look around (in this room!!)
The Mirror, Perth
The Mirror is a collection of home snaps showing people with dementia doing something they love. People in WA were invited to share their photos to help create a gallery of images that celebrate people with dementia. The gallery reflects back the joy of life and offers hope for those who are newly diagnosed with dementia – and for their families and friends. The gallery is included in the LoveFest Perth collection.
Evaluation
Forty one participants completed the evaluation survey provided prior to closure of LoveFest. The survey asked participants to rate the usefulness of the event on a 5-point scale ranging from: very useful (5), useful (4), moderately useful (3), slightly useful (2), not useful (1). Thirty-two delegates rated the event as very useful, eight as useful and one delegate didn’t provide a rating. The average usefulness rating for LoveFest was 4.8 out of 5.
Participants were also invited to document the best aspects of LoveFest and anything that they thought could be improved. Twenty-seven participants reported that learning from people with dementia and their families was the best the aspect of the event and 20 added that the story based approach was the best. One person with dementia reported the best aspect was “being able to communicate my story of belonging.” Examples of responses include:
The Best
Overall comments
During the breaks, Roving Evaluators invited delegates to share their responses to LoveFest. This strategy was considered useful to learn as much as possible from what participants were experiencing. The Roving Evaluators wrote down the following comments:
Participants were also invited to document the best aspects of LoveFest and anything that they thought could be improved. Twenty-seven participants reported that learning from people with dementia and their families was the best the aspect of the event and 20 added that the story based approach was the best. One person with dementia reported the best aspect was “being able to communicate my story of belonging.” Examples of responses include:
The Best
- Hearing stories. Very raw and very emotional. Great to hear the lived experience
- Powerful and authentic sharing of personal stories
- Hearing similar stories and having people with dementia attend and participate. Felt very privileged to be invited to present
- Personal sharing of so many aspects of Alzheimer’s. Such an insight. Long lasting “take aways”
- Sincerity of presenters. Very real topics
- Meeting everyone – talking – hearing their stories. Replacing fear (of dementia) with love – really seeing/feeling the humanity of both carers and people living with dementia
- The moving stories from people with dementia and their carers, as well as supportive atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed interacting with a woman with advanced dementia who told me she loved me and kissed me on the cheek. If only more of us were less reserved!
- I thoroughly enjoyed this event. The learning, the stories, singing, dancing and those moments when the sharing gave you some new ways of working and challenging the stigma of dementia in your communities and organisations
- Personal experiences of the highs and lows of caring and living with dementia
- Atmosphere was phenomenal. This ‘concept’ will grow. Let’s refer to this as ‘LoveFest Perth 2018’ because we should have more in future years. One small step …
Overall comments
- It was beautifully put together
- Loved every moment!! Congratulations
- Brilliant, didn’t want it to end
- You are doing a marvellous thing. Keep up the good work
- Beautiful, beautiful seminar felt from the heart
- Wonderful day! Informative, inspiring and uplifting!
- You achieved a real sweet spot. It was innovative, in a spirit of collaboration. Lots to follow up – people, art, connecting people to other people and loads more. No bum notes. I was totally energised by the day
- Thankyou for organising this wonderful mix of PWD, their carers and service providers
- Come back again
- This needs to be an annual event
- More organisations should support LoveFest and ‘get with the program’
During the breaks, Roving Evaluators invited delegates to share their responses to LoveFest. This strategy was considered useful to learn as much as possible from what participants were experiencing. The Roving Evaluators wrote down the following comments:
- Everyone has been so good to listen to. Stellar. A plus. Inspiring.
- Reminds us of how important belongingness, value, worth and unconditional love is for the whole of our live. Privilege to share people’s stories
- Great to have diversity included. Thankyou Dina and Krishan
- Heart-warmingly good
- I wouldn’t have missed this for the world
- Perth rocks!
- Reinvigorating. Reminds you of the things you were going to do, but haven’t
- It was great to have all parts of the stories told – positive, grief, alienation and sadness
- I’m finding it … inspiring and am so impressed with the love that the carers show. I am in awe. Could I do that?
- Really touching. More emotional than I expected. Hearing the stories – they connect us – it touches on our own experiences
Contact us
Dr Catherine Barrett, Curator of the Museum of Love: 0429 582 237 or email: director@celebrateageing.com
June Lowe, Chair of GRAI: email: chair@grai.org.au
Dee Skuza, Community Development Officer City of Melville: email: Dee.Skuza@melville.wa.gov.au
June Lowe, Chair of GRAI: email: chair@grai.org.au
Dee Skuza, Community Development Officer City of Melville: email: Dee.Skuza@melville.wa.gov.au
Working group
Thank you so much to our Perth working group who have worked hard to make LoveFest Perth as success.
Media
Thank you to all the journos and organisations that are writing about LoveFest Perth. You work helps us to raise awareness and for that we are very grateful:
- Have a Go News: Scene Socially (link)
- Melville Times: Garden City success for first LoveFest could see it return in 2020 (link)
- Melville Times: Garden City LoveFest 'Kiss Exhibition' to challenge perceptions about dementia (link)
- Have A Go: Perth will host Australia's first Festival of Love and Dementia (link)
- Alzheimer's WA: An invitation to people with dementia and their families (link)
- COTA WA: Opportunity to connect with and learn from people with dementia (link)
Partners
LoveFest is an initiative of the Museum of Love, part of the Celebrate Ageing Program. It was bought to Perth by GRAI with the support of the City of Melville and Alzheimer's WA and as well as: The Care Side, Hall and Prior Health and Aged Care Group, Chorus, SouthCare, Garden City Shopping Centre, Heart to Heart Connections, Consultivation and Lisa White, The Social Photographer.