This exhibition showcases the perspectives of residents from Vale House, tackling the loss of identity experienced by those with dementia. The title, ‘There is No Door, Yet There are Many Windows’ was a comment made by a resident, while they were making art. It became a metaphor, as there is no door to escape dementia but there are still windows, offering glints of nostalgia and empowerment.

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 Each resident has designed a personalised window reflecting their life, interests, and their current reality, to reconstruct mechanisms for comfort. It is a platform to express how those with dementia can still experience lucidity, creativity and fulfilment. Together the installation of windows represents a home, where community is shaped by diverse outlooks.

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Artist and an art psychotherapist in training, Georgia Crowther designed this project to be accessible to every individual, helping to heal mental, physical and existential pains. She created the windows with each resident, helping where mobility was a limiting factor. She expresses how using poetry, music and talking with relatives was a huge way of those involved to participate.

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The project was exhibited at OVADA Gallery in July and in Fusion Arts Window Galleries in November-December 2023. Georgia also created a series of ceramic windows to express the duality of a personal art practice for those training in art psychotherapy. She brings the project to the general public, teaching window making workshops, asking the participants to reframe their reality.

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This exhibition was funded by the Arts Council England.

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See here for a recognition from Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.

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