How do we increase participation in social, digital and cultural life in our later years? Connecting Through Culture As We Age (CTC) is partway through a three-year project exploring how participation in all forms of arts and culture – especially in digital form – can influence our wellbeing and feelings of social connection as we age.

The project started life in 2021, funded by UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge, and has at its heart, a digital co-design process that centres the voices, lived experiences and expertise of minoritised older adults who identify as disabled, and/or are socioeconomically and racially minoritized. Now is your chance to join a collection of researchers, older adults involved as co-designers, community partners and the project’s six prototype teams for an interactive event where we will share some of the learning, creative outputs and impacts from the project.

In the morning, connect with our research team, co-researchers and project partners through a series of conversations exploring the relationships between older adults and technology, and imagining ways forward for co-design. Then in the afternoon, take the chance to play with the project's six prototypes through a series of drop-in workshops. Be transported to another place through a multisensory dining experience with Tabletop Travels. Browse stories that re-enforce and invigorate the message of vibrancy and value that older women hold in society with Retirement Reloaded: Wonderful Women of Words. Uncover elder stories and memories from the wash house and bath house through zines and soundscape with Anyone Remember the Washhouse?. Use off-the-shelf technology to create a wearable, interactive patch with Expressive Pockets. Discover more about Recycle City, a speculative city founded on the values of creativity, community, opportunity and welfare. Or immerse yourself in Murmurations, an installation and collection of experiences and languages that share the hidden words of older people, queer people and the crip community.

Please note some elements will have limited capacity for which there will be sign up sheets on the day.

Full programme details to follow.