Dementia and art: making a positive connection

Students’ interest in mental well-being and raising awareness of mental health issues comes over strongly when you visit the end of degree shows for our art and design programmes.

Jon Sleigh, a freelance arts educator, as written a post for ArtUK on art as a vehicle for well-being, focusing on outreach work he has done with people at various stages of dementia.

His piece is sensitively written and gives us an insight into the importance of art for many, but also the ethics of potentially distressing responses that can arise.

If you’re interested in exploring this subject further, we have a large collection of books on dementia, and books specifically exploring dementia and art.