3.1 Building Capacity

Building connections between stakeholders and sharing knowledge have been key tenets of the project – in other words CTC has taken an active role in joining up ideas and people from cultural and community organisations, tech innovation and academia. One aim of this has been to build capacity within and between partner organisations through workshops, knowledge exchange fora and simply working side by side to support older people. As one partner, Georgina Densley, said: “…actually I think it will influence my practice a lot in how you can centralise those voices in a process driven approach.”  In 2023 Tot Foster led workshops at Wellspring Settlement for arts practitioners to develop their skills in video production. Since then, two video projects have been funded at Wellspring. Shanti Sherson says, “Wellspring Settlement have received a grant to work with over 55’s, new to engage with us. The film workshops that we attended as part of ‘Connecting through Culture’ have been integral to our decision to include filmmaking… They have given us the confidence in our own ability and the ability of older people in our community to learn filmmaking and use it to communicate.” Now, a new research project has also emerged from this work, supported by the University’s Participatory Research Fund. This research by practice brings together partners Wellspring Settlement and Creative Shift, to make films with older people. Here is an extract from a conversation between researchers Tot Foster and Nick Gray about the project, which is currently in its early stages.  

To read the complete text of this conversation in our blog post, please click here.