Creative ageing? Selfhood, temporality and the older adult learner

Abstract

This paper is based on a long-term ethnography of an adult creative writing class situated in a major urban art gallery in the United Kingdom. It takes the claims of one group of older adults—that creative writing made them ‘feel younger’—as the starting point for exploring this connection further. It places these claims broadly within theories of learning in later life that advocate creative expression and reminiscence as important practices for educators of older adults. However, the main analysis employs anthropological theories of creativity and ageing in order to question the cultural assumptions about creativity and the period of older age informing theory and practice. The paper argues that the value of creative writing for the individuals studied lies both in the fact that it is a relational (rather than individual) process and a means of being in the present. These findings contradict traditional conceptions about creativity as future-oriented and older people as retrospective; they also raise questions about narratives of empowerment, individual agency and the importance of ‘reminiscence’ in some of the literature on older adult learning.

Keywords:

• creativity
• ageing
• wellbeing
• selfhood
• temporality

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the members of ‘Painting Words’ for their time and patience, for accepting me into their group and for sharing both their solitary and collective creativity with me. My thanks also go to the gallery, its staff, and in particular to Jenny for her interest and unwavering support. I am grateful to the two reviewers of this article for their helpful suggestions in revising the paper. And, as always, thanks go to Adam Reed for many conversations before, during and after the writing and for his comments on various drafts.

Notes

1. There has been much debate about how this is to be defined but there is general consensus that it cannot be by chronological age. Findsen and Formosa suggest the following working definition: ‘people, whatever their chronological age, who are post-work and post-family, in the sense that they are less or no longer involved in an occupational career or with the major responsibilities for raising a family’ (2011, p. 11).

2. The Luminate Festival is part of a wider trend in the developed world for ‘Creative Ageing’ Centres and Festivals. Some notable examples are as follows: National Centre for Creative Aging, Washington, DC; Creative Ageing Centre, Queensland, Australia; Ireland’s Bealtaine Festival.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shari Sabeti

Shari Sabeti is currently Chancellor’s Fellow at the School of Education, University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include museum education, creativity, public pedagogy, and the use of visual and digital texts in school classrooms.