Oldtopia

Image: Anthony Briggs

If the last twelve months have proved anything it’s just how important it is that we rethink how we support old age in the UK.

The year before the pandemic, Fable Arts, my participative arts organisation, received a commission from Arts Lancashire to work in partnership with long-time collaborators, Ludus Dance, to develop a creative project as part of their ongoing research in to arts and health working in Lancashire.

We designed our project to form part of a series of intergenerational conversations for Archive of Ageing, our ongoing programme of creative exploration into ageing and the issues facing older people and our future society that we developed in response to Pfizer's research about the world's ageing population and, on a local level, the research undertaken by Lancashire County Council about the demographic shift that will take place in Fylde over the next thirty years.

We called our project Oldtopia.

Working with performing arts students from Blackpool and Fylde College, Fable Arts, our arts partners, Ludus Dance, patients at Clifton Hospital in Lytham St Annes and residents Barchester Healthcare Glenroyd Care Home in Blackpool, Oldtopia explored what young people think, want and worry about in relation to old age and imagines a different future approach to life as an older person.

Incorporating film, green screen performance, photography, sound, movement and spoken word, Oldtopia imagined what life and care for the students as older people might look like for them in the future and gave the students an opportunity to consider what advice their older selves would give to their current selves to ensure they have a rich and resourceful old age.

During the making of Oldtopia, three members of our creative team each lost a parent in very sudden and traumatic circumstances, experiencing first hand how the system copes with and cares for the old. It was a uniquely distressing time for all of us, yet somehow the work continued, our commitment to highlighting the need for, and significance of, bringing young people into conversations about their future health provision and the importance of creating further opportunities for young and old to work together, galvanised like never before.

Shortly after the project completed, the pandemic took hold and work on the project’s documentary filmed stalled as our health partners responded to the challenging demands of COVID-19 and our creatives grappled with the prospect of losing their livelihoods in a sector that was decimated overnight. Twelve months on, almost a year after it completed, we are finally in a position to release a short documentary of Oldtopia. It holds a different resonance now. In the face of so much loss, conversations such as those developed through Oldtopia, are more relevant than ever.

Creative Director and Producer: Alex O’Toole

Art Director and Choreographer: Anthony Briggs

Original Music: Charlotte Barber

Costume: Norma Foulds

Videographer: Niamh O’Grady