Tate Exchange & Showcase Events
Flourishing Lives provides a platform for arts and wellbeing organisations to showcase their work, and for older people to celebrate their creative abilities and achievements.
We deliver a variety of public-facing events, exhibitions and programmes alongside coalition partners and major arts organisations to promote and advocate for the benefits of artistic engagement to older people’s physical and mental wellbeing.
Tate Exchange
We are proud to be Tate Exchange Associates, a community of artists, organisations and universities that explore the role of art in society.
Flourishing Lives is the Tate Exchange ambassador for older people’s arts and wellbeing work, which means that we deliver a programme of events, exhibitions and workshops for a week every year at Tate Modern, providing an international platform to amplify older people’s perspectives.
Over the last three years, we have delivered three annual programmes at Tate Modern, showcasing the work of our coalition organisations and the incredible creativity and expression of the older people who participate in their services.
90 coalition artists, community groups and organisations have collaborated over the three years and 6662 visitors have participated in milestone events celebrating the immense contribution that older people make to both art and society.
You can view the full programmes from the events below, detailing all of the activities and the inspirational organisations and community groups that we have collaborated with:
Showcase Events
Alongside our annual Tate Exchange programmes, we also produce showcase events, projects and installations at major venues across London, along with regional and international collaborations advocating for the creative ageing agenda.
We co-produced a showcase event at the Barbican in partnership with the Liminal Space and UCL, collaborating in 2019 on ‘Unclaimed’, a major public art installation putting forward new narratives about ageing. We partnered with the Liminal Space and Chickenshed Theatre to stage an intergenerational workshop in the space, bringing younger and older people to creatively engage with the ‘Unclaimed’ installation and reflect on their perspectives and experiences of ageing.
We also partnered with Opening Doors London and BSMT Gallery in 2020 to stage an exhibition, ‘From a Whisper to a Roar’, exploring the experiences and perspectives of older lesbian, bisexual and trans women.
Our role in producing major cross-sector showcase events demonstrates the huge value and need for opportunities for service providers and older people to celebrate their achievements and showcase their work to the public on high-profile regional and national platforms.
Opportunities to shine beyond one’s local context is elevating and inspiring, providing a space for hundreds of older people and thousands of visitors to participate in aspirational arts activities and explore perceptions of ageing. 88% of visitors to our Tate Exchange programme in 2019 said, when surveyed, that their assumptions about older people had changed as a result of the event. These opportunities to shine are vital in advocating for the impact of the sector, and a source of joy and inspiration for older people.
We will continue to develop and expand our vital role as a national and international platform for the sector, creating more opportunities for arts and wellbeing organisations to showcase their work, and for older people to celebrate their creative abilities and achievements.