What is Lighting Up?
Lighting Up is a group of artists working alongside people living with dementia in the Bristol area. Our mission is to support people who are living with dementia, helping them to maintain or improve the quality of their lives through visual arts. The term people living with dementia means people who have dementia and those who help them (normally referred to as carers).
Lighting Up was formed in 2007 with the support of Alzheimer’s Society Bristol office and North Bristol Artists. It is now an independent charity with a current membership of around 30 artists and other supporters.
Why use art?
Art (in its widest sense) is recognised as an effective help to overcoming difficulties associated with dementia such as impairment of memory and verbal communication. People with quite severe communication difficulties can often understand, and express themselves to other people through art media, and this in turn can help them with their ability to understand and express themselves in spoken language. Carers often comment that they have not seen the person they care for being so responsive, concentrating, and even enjoying themselves so much for some considerable time. For carers too this is important, as they can be surprised at what the person they care for is able to achieve. It may help them to find more effective ways of communicating in their own homes.
We welcome artists and crafts-people who are able to bring a range of creative skills to our sessions.
What we do
Lighting Up sessions normally take place once a month, and we see it as important to establish continuity from one session to the next. We hold our sessions at several venues across Bristol, some of which are organised in conjunction with Alzheimer’s Society. We also work with people who live in extra-care housing at Lincoln Gardens in Lawrence Hill. Lincoln Gardens is managed by The Guinness Trust. At this venue some of the participants are living with conditions other than dementia.
Participants may be a bit unsure about what will happen at the start of a session and some people with dementia may be quite anxious. Artists work alongside participants on a range of carefully planned activities which are designed to be exciting and stimulating for participants and artists alike. Some carers like to work together with the person they care for; others take the opportunity to work more individually.
The pictures on this website show some examples of the creative output of the participants who often say how much they appreciate taking part in Lighting Up activities and how much they look forward to their next session.
The pages of this website
This website has seven pages. You can go to any of these pages by clicking on its name in the list below or by clicking on the page names in the bar at the top of the page .
- The Home page, which is this page.
- Like to try Lighting Up? This page is for people who have dementia and for people who look after them.
- Like to be a Lighting Up artist? This page is for artists considering joining us.
- How does Lighting Up work? This page is for people and agencies that are interested in working with Lighting Up through sponsorship. It will also be of interest to those who are thinking of volunteering to help us with our management and admin.
- Lighting Up aims. This page gives the formal wording of our Mission Statement and how we aim to achieve it.
- Make a donation. This page explains how we are funded and gives examples of some of the ways in which individual people can help us financially.
- Contact us. This page tells how to get in contact with us.
Watch our short film
To view an 8 minute film about Lighting Up, simply press the arrow at the centre of the image: