Where to Begin, an installation of poetry, presented what it is like to with a rare dementia at Nipissing University’s gallery in the Student Union Building. As part of a ESRC/NIHR (UK) funded study people affected by rare dementia co-constructed poems facilitated by interdisciplinary researchers and poets Martha Gould in North Bay, Ontario and Lawrence Wilson in Rye, East Sussex. People affected by rare dementia in Canada and the UK were invited to submit words and short phrases to a series of questions to promote reflection on how to talk about dementia and what support looked like. The words were constructed into poems, shared with participants, and then discussed to draw out essential meanings around talking about and supporting people living with rare dementia. The installation featured poems from the book There is So Much I Could Say (2022).
A special thanks to our research participants and Martha and Lawrence for the success of this work and the publication of the poetry book.
For more information contact rdscanresearch@nipissingu.ca