Dementia has become an overarching theme for the Latvian project team – DOTS Foundation for an Open Society and the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. Latvia is one of the fastest “ageing” countries of Europe and even the world, and, therefore, the share of people with dementia or other cognitive or mental disabilities is rising.
The project team have partnered with the young media artist Anna Priedola to bring light to this issue. The collaboration started in early 2021 and will result in a “Dairy Diaries” exhibition that will be on view at the Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum in Riga.
The “Dairy Diaries” will introduce and depict the daily life and perceptual processes, socio-political realities, and human relations of seniors with dementia. Through audiovisual diaries and data visualization, the exhibition will bring attention to the lives of these seniors, and start a conversation about whether it is easy to be a senior in Latvia.
Food (dairy products) will be used as data visualization material. In her creative work, Anna Priedola has previously focused on studying food as an artistic and data visualization material and the multisensory experience in perceiving a work of art. Food, as an ancient and vital part of human culture, also has significant but sometimes entrenched connotations that can be dramatized or reversed in a work of art, changing the way statistics are viewed, and allowing abstract data to be smelled, tasted, and interpreted associatively.
Milk has been chosen as a material for expressing dementia data, not only for aesthetic and associative reasons but also as an essential product that has allowed the people of Northern Europe to survive the most difficult times. On the other hand, when studying recommendations of nutrition scientists on a diet that would help repel the decline of cognitive abilities and the development of dementia, milk and other products high in sugar and fat are mentioned in the category of non-recommended products.
Art mediators and their involvement
In joint work with the artist, our Latvian team of art mediators has been providing broader insight into the lives of seniors and seniors with dementia in creating an exhibition. They will also serve as interlocutors and intermediaries between the visitors and the work of art displayed at the exhibition.
In addition to the joint training program, a group of Latvian mediators have also participated in training that directly affects the chosen field of art – contemporary audiovisual art, data visualization, and conversation with the audience on a sensitive and/or painful topic.
In August 2022, art mediators and the artist held an open creative workshop, “Dairy Diaries Dementia Data Recipes” for the locals and visitors of Kuldīga (Latvia). They learned to represent data on dementia using food products to make statistics easier to digest and to be experienced using different senses. In the data recipes workshop, information on dementia could be tasted, touched, and sniffed, helping to create cognitive and corporeal associations in the process. Moreover, mediators visited Kuldīga Hospital to share four different meals with the patients, observing the particularities of physical sensation.