Exhibition posters on Gardening and Dementia for the ESRC Festival of Social Science Manchester 2024

The rationale for the photographic exhibition and its interaction with the public was as follows:

a) To showcase photographs that focus on what people with dementia do and their continued (or new) interest in their garden at home; this will help to combat stigma and the social exclusion of people with dementia in everyday life and activities.

b) To communicate the powerful effects that being outdoors has for people with dementia and the continuity of everyday roles and interests, and how gardening changes over the seasons.

c) For the display to enable visitors to reflect on their own lives and experiences where the lived experience of dementia may be present either in the past or in the present-day.

d) To enhance skills in communicating social science and creative/participatory social research methods to a non-academic audience and visitors to the exhibition.

The photographic exhibition was called ‘Gardening with Dementia: the power of nature and the outdoors’ and was held at the Community Wellbeing Garden at RHS Garden Bridgewater and was a partnership between the University of Manchester, Royal Horticultural Society and Lancaster University.