Lighting Up: lessons learned in establishing an arts project

Lighting Up is a project in which artists work with people who have dementia and their carers. It has been running for over two years, and is now based in three venues in Bristol and South Gloucestershire. This article describes what Lighting Up has done and learnt over that time. Lighting Up aims to ensure that sessions encourage continuity and development from one session to the next, rather than simply being one-off enjoyable events. The focus is on the quality of participants’ lives rather than the outcomes of any specific activity. The article describes different models of arranging the Lighting Up sessions before finding the one that worked best. It also describes the experiences in setting up sessions in care settings. At the moment 17 artists, all of whom work on a voluntary basis, are actively involved in the project. During the 12 months to March 2010 there were 231 participations at the sessions by people with dementia and their carers.