Wales Millennium Centre – Hand i Pocket Funshop

Posted on by Wendy

CARIAD researchers collaborated with Age Cymru and Alzheimer’s Society to host a creative ‘funshop’ to coincide with Age Positive Week (27th September – 4th October 2015).  The Hand i Pocket Funshop was a free public event held at Wales Millennium Centre on Saturday 3rd October led by Prof Cathy Treadaway from the CARIAD at Cardiff Met.

People who dropped in to the Hand i Pocket Funshop were invited to make and decorate a pocket for someone with dementia, using an enticing array of cloth, thread, buttons and beads, with plenty of help and inspiration on hand. The idea was to create textile pockets that are visually stimulating, interesting or soothing to touch and fun to fiddle with. They might have things hidden inside or be a place to put things. Pockets could be made for specific people and include things personal to them and their life story.

Hand i Pocket Funshops enable people to share stories through the making process and have been found to be useful ways of building support groups for families and carers. Volunteers from Age Cymru and Alzheimer’s Society will be on hand on Saturday to advise on free services available to families and carers of people with dementia.
The Hand i Pocket methodology was first developed by Professor Cathy Treadaway, Professor of Creative Practice at CARIAD, Cardiff School of Art and Design, and Dr. Gail Kenning, UTS in Sydney in 2014, in conjunction with Alzheimer’s Australia and is now being used in countries around the world to build creative communities that address the global challenge of caring for people with dementia.