Painting as a form of Material Thinking: Promoting agency and expression for people living with dementia

Abstract

Awareness of the importance of understanding agency and selfhood for people living with dementia (PLWD) is growing. However, more needs to be done to incorporate such awareness into care practices. The importance of arts activities such as music, dance, and painting for enhancing quality of life for people living with dementia is widely recognised. However, research focuses on beneficial outcomes leaving us with scant knowledge relating to the creative processes that PLWD may experience. This paper explores the process of painting for PLWD and offers insight into how engagement with paint and painting materials can explain and embody agency. We argue that the process of painting itself exemplifies a form of embodied agency and cognition, a type of ‘Material Thinking’, hence helping to demonstrate the thinking skills that PLWD may retain even after a degree of decline of other capacities.

This study outlines how eight people living with dementia engaged with and experienced painting whilst working alongside an artist-researcher. Data was captured through semi-structured interviews, and observations captured by video recordings and field notes. Qualitative thematic analysis identified emergent themes, including Mark Making, Flexible Ideas, and Immersion, in relation to how painting engages the Material Thinking of people living with dementia. Our analysis demonstrates that the process of painting involves distinct forms of decision making, agency, and cognition, even in the absence of language. While having many other benefits, painting has great potential to be incorporated into care practices as a valid expression and recognition of cognition and agency.