Walking into the Humboldt and District Museum, fifteen boxes lie on display tables in the front room.
Some of them hold old pictures, other miniature figurines of horses and cattle, while others are complete rooms with little desks.
These are more than just mere boxes, but the stories of seniors from all across Saskatchewan in 2013-2015 for the Hello In There/Hello Out There exhibit that will run until Mar. 23.
Project Artists, Chrystene Ells and Rowan Pantel, spoke about their experience with the project at their artist talk on Feb. 5 and did a Humboldt based workshop on Feb. 6.
People were invited to come in and create their own memory journals, either with a volunteer or a family member.
During their time travelling Saskatchewan, Ells and Pantel, along with numerous volunteers went into different seniors care facilities across the province and sat down for some one on one time to listen to the stories of seniors, first to make memory journals and then to make the memory boxes that are on display.
It was a way of providing a voice to a group of people that may be silenced just by their circumstance of being in a care facility.
“It’s a way of providing a voice, a way for them to share, to communicate, to express things.”
Not only do people get to see the boxes on display but part of the exhibit is also audio clips from the seniors themselves telling the story of their box. This has a greater impact on people viewing the boxes.
“People would put the headphones on and just cry or get so engaged, it takes it to another level.”
Sitting down with people required a lot of care and attention, and facilities had to match the number of senior participants with the number of volunteers that were available.
“If you leave them, quite often they’d just shut down.”
For Ells, the exhibit started mostly by taking care of her father as he lay dying of cancer in hospice care. She noticed in hospice that people sometimes just died of boredom, she said at the artist talk.
Spending that time with her dad, seeing his body slowly disappear and shut down made her interested in end of life care and telling people’s stories before they die.
Pantel is very close with her grandparents, who are now 89 and 84. Hearing stories was a big part of their relationship, which lead to Pantel meeting Ells while doing movies about those stories.
Her grandparents were a big reason for Pantel getting involved in this project.
“That fear of what happens if they have to go into a nursing home and just wanting to interact in nursing homes and give them something to look forward to on a week to week basis.”
Listening to what the participant wants to say and do and not put their own spin on things was an important part of the project, says Pantel. Often times, something that they found interesting in someone’s story was not the direction the senior wanted to take their project.
They sometimes would become a confidant to those participants, someone to take a burden off their shoulders of something tragic, says Pantel.
“Just allowing people to say things that they need to get off their chest but they don’t want their family to know about it or they need someone to know about it or someone to hear about it but they don’t want it going past that one day.”
Like a lot of beneficial arts programs in Saskatchewan, it is hard to take programs like this and end it. With a little money left in the budget at the end of the program, they went back to the participants again and did another art project with them. It was not the same, says Ells.
“The art is big but it’s that memory and that engagement and that listening and that asking questions, that’s what really gives it the depth.”
Ells first subject that she sat down with was a woman named Hilda and her daughter who was there to help her mother with the project.
Ells was touched to see the mother and the daughter working together, especially since Hilda passed away a few months after completing her memory box.
Ells saw a lot of benefit from the program through seniors like Hilda.
“It didn’t stop her from dying, it didn’t make her suddenly remember her whole life. It wasn’t huge, earth changing things, it was giving her these little moments and also giving her daughter these last precious hours that she got to spend with her mother before she crossed over.”
Another person that really benefited from the program was a woman by the name of Mrs. Miller. Cognisantly, she had a lot problems with memory and felt really depressed where she was. But she loved playing with her cow box that she made, says Ells.
“You could see her change from being sad, depressed feeling out of place, missing her former life even though her husband is there. It’s almost as if she’s in a really dark place and this box with the cows in it was a light beam into her experience.”
Unfortunately, the biggest problem in care homes is keeping programs that engage the residents going. This is not the fault of care workers or recreational staff, but a lack of funding.
Ells hopes to take this program further by going to the health regions with recreation directors and present them anecdotal evidence of the benefits of the memory boxes.
Both Pantel and Ells saw the good the program did with numerous seniors. There is lots of examples of people who open up after the program and people who go off antidepressants after being involved in the program. The number of residents on antidepressants is huge, says Pantel.
“I think it’s 75 per cent of seniors in care facilities are on some form of antidepressant. It’s a lack of stimulation but it’s the fault of funding, there isn’t enough funding for them.”
Both Pantel and Ells also heard stories of lack of family involvement in the seniors care. In one case, the gentleman did not have a choice of being put in the care facility and no one consulted him on what to do with his belongings.
Hearing the frustration in his voice is something Ells wishes his family would hear.
“It’s a different way of dealing with our elderly in this culture where we send them off to professional caregivers who prepare them for death...I wish we had a different way of dealing with death in this culture.”
The biggest message Ells wants people to take from this exhibit is that these are still people with stories to tell.
“I’d really encourage people to think of their elderly as human beings.”
The Hello In There/Hello Out There workshop project was organized by Common Weal and is sponsored by Saskatchewan Cultural Exchange who partnered with Organization of Saskatchewan Art Council to bring Ells out to speak at Humboldt.
Humboldt and District Museum will have workshops for kids and making their own memory pieces on Feb. 20 and 27 and Mar. 12 and 19.
