I have been here at UTS in Sydney working as International Visiting Scholar with my collaborators Dr.Gail Kenning and Prof Roger Dunston for nearly three weeks now – I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by.
This weekend we ran a participatory Funshop event at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney supported by Alzheimer’s Australia as part of the Makers Faire and Sydney Design Week. It was very successful and resulted in an interview for local radio and photographs taken for ABC TV (equivalent of the BBC). The museum had a footfall of 5,500 people over the weekend (the usual average is 700 each day) – so they were thrilled. There were about 35 other groups represented at the event and we were told by the Powerhouse staff that ours was one of the most popular with the pubic – it certainly felt like it – exhausting!!.
The theme of the funshop was ‘Hand i Pockets’ – a development from the dementia aprons project I ran in June and we encouraged participants to make sensory pockets for people with late stage dementia. We also gave two public lectures about the research as part of Sydney Design Week. We had an excellent meeting with the CEO from Alzheimer’s Australia NSW who have pledged their support for our research and are helping facilitate meetings. We are travelling 500 miles north to Coffs Harbour tomorrow to meet and interview dementia care managers, OT’s and Alzheimer’s staff there to get a regional perspective outside of Sydney.