A full day of presentations in front of a packed room (250+). David Cutler set out the case for access to the arts for older people as a human right. It was interesting to hear from our Korean colleagues about their concern about the baby boomer generation - the average age of retirement is 52! (My age...) but the state pension age is 65. There is a worry that there are tensions between the generations and that loneliness amongst older people is a huge concern. Kimon Kim of The National Institute of Dementia spoke about their three core missions - to improve citizens quality of life, to improve awareness about dementia and to build a foundation to lead research. Her slides above show the need for the sectors to work together. We heard from Professor Jeong Ok Hwang from Korea Dance Institute about a dance and dementia research project. Diane Amans (a leading dance artist from the Uk and a WCMT Fellow) will be leading two dance workshops this week. 
We also heard about the Mobile Arts Station - Yong Hyundai Kim reaches out to culturally isolated areas by using transport like buses, trucks and hospital ships. These become the venue for the projects - artists work with local people and share their everyday experience in the arts. This could work in rural areas of the UK, a version of the "play" bus - but for older people or intergenerational.
I showed work by Equal Arts and discussed key elements of The Imaginaton Model and Recipes for Creative Care. Fantastic to hear about the other Uk programmes. More tomorrow.
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