The Listener-in-Residence project was a 5-month intergenerational art project between the Luther Court Senior Care Home and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) by artist Libby Oliver and curator Regan Shrumm. Due to the restrictions of COVID-19, the project adapted and expanded its goal of lessening senior isolation and creating intergenerational relationships through a volunteer program.
In this interview, Libby talks about the program and her experience facilitating it. For more information about the project, visit www.listenerinresidence.com.
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Libby Oliver has a BFA with honours from the University of Victoria, where she specialized in photography and installation art. Libby previously studied International Development and Gender at the University of Guelph.
She coordinates community art spaces and has worked on policy projects that support community inclusion in the arts. She currently lives and works on the territories of the Lekwungen peoples, also known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations (Victoria, BC), as an artist and freelance photographer.
Website: https://chewonthisart.com/
Instagram: @chewonthisart
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Art Gallery of Greater Victoria sits on the unceded and traditional territory of the Lkwungen-speaking peoples, today known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, and WSÁNEĆ First Nations.The Listener-in-Residence project was a 5-month intergenerational art project between the Luther Court Senior Care Home and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) by artist Libby Oliver and curator Regan Shrumm. Due to the restrictions of COVID-19, the project adapted and expanded its goal of lessening senior isolation and creating …
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0:15
okay
0:17
so hi my name is reagan trum i’m the
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assistant curator at the art gallery
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greater
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victoria and i’m here with libby oliver
0:25
who was the listener and residence
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artist resident um and so
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we’re just gonna talk about the program
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listener in residence
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and libby can you describe listener in
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residence and how it
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changed with covid yeah
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the um the listener in residence
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was a project that reagan and i uh came
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up to get
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together when we were talking about um
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there needing to be more
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intergenerational
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connections uh between seniors
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and youth or
1:00
in victoria and after looking at a bunch
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of designs
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that have already been done specifically
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i think in the uk
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we made this program where i was going
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into
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the luther court society a senior care
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home a couple times a week
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for several months and working with the
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same group of participants
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and building projects with them um
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and the focus of our programming was on
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conversations and building a
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relationship
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and then it would be accumulating in
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photo portraits
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it changed it changed with covet in
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march
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because the senior care homes were shut
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down to the public
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so for the safety i was of course not
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allowed in
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and with the increased isolation of
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seniors
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we found a need to connect these seniors
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to volunteers in the community
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and uh and we had i think
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was 130 or 130
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will apply to be connected with a senior
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um and from this program we’ve had
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uh volunteers and many people who
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call them self-not volunteers but
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friends uh
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calling a senior uh on a regular basis
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for
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um i guess it’s been five months now
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um and building their own really special
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relationships with seniors
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can you talk about the impact of this
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residency
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on your artistic practice
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um yeah i think before i’ve always had a
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very relational art practice and i think
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all of my projects i i work with
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a lot of different people um to build my
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portraits
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um so i’m familiar with working with
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people
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um but i’m also you’re really used to
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having an idea and then quickly
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executing it
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and sort of like coming in and getting
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people involved and like
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really quickly moving and so working
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with this group of seniors
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a lot of whom had dementia i was moving
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a lot slower
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and it made me question sort of what a
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collaborative
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approach actually means and
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how i was having conversations and what
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consent
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meant with all of that along the way so
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um yeah i think for me the slowness was
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was uh it came with a lot more
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intentionality
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and and it came with uh sort of like
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questioning the speed of things and like
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the the value of just like the
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relationship building before
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this actual outcome and um this like
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fixation on this
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on this final product and i think a lot
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of interesting things came out of
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uh building something slowly and
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collaboratively
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um with this group of people and i think
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that
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you know like we we came up together
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with these ideas of
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um you know
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making their food that they can’t make
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anymore at the senior care home
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uh and like designing a dinner table and
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doing these projects that
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that they valued and cared about and
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even their photo portraits we had
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been working on building the design of
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those all together
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which again something i normally involve
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people in but i think i
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am now kind of questioning and thinking
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about how i moved through these
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decisions when working with
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other participants and then
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touching on that of since the seniors
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really got to collaborate
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with you on these projects do you want
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to
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talk a little bit about um how
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you think the residency impacted both
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the seniors at luther court but also
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those
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um who were part of the the phoning
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seniors together
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program yeah i think that
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the seniors at luther court i think it
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was
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um it was really special because it was
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such an unstructured program
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and something that was being built um
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day by day that we were interacting
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together
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and it was open to a lot of um
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movement or fluctuation based on their
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input
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which is maybe a new experience for them
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um especially living in such a place
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that is fairly scheduled and
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and routine so this is something that
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added
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uh variation to their day and uh
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the ability to have this sort of choice
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in the way that they
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um lived for that period of time uh
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the few people that i was able to do
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photo shoots with they expressed
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feeling really special
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with being able to have this like center
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of attention on them and feel
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glamorous and i thought that was really
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important and um made me also reflect on
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like the process of photography rather
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than
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this final photo and then uh the seniors
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who’ve been involved in the senior
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uh phoning program so many of them have
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expressed
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this like really special bond that
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they’ve made with their volunteers
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or their friends and and
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that feels really good for me that that
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there’s
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been these relationships i’ve been able
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to build that have been
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something that is like way beyond my
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capacity to hold
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all of these relationships um
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yeah and so being able to hear the
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stories of
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other ways people have been able to
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connect through their
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experiences has been pretty pretty cool
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and if people want to hear more of these
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stories of
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all the seniors of libby’s artwork
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and her time at luther court
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people can go to
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www.listenerresidence.ca and
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check out libby’s work thank you libby
7:32
thank you
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