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okay

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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

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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

0:53

connections uh between seniors

0:56

and youth or

1:00

in victoria and after looking at a bunch

1:02

of designs

1:04

that have already been done specifically

1:06

i think in the uk

1:07

we made this program where i was going

1:09

into

1:10

the luther court society a senior care

1:12

home a couple times a week

1:17

for several months and working with the

1:19

same group of participants

1:23

and building projects with them um

1:27

and the focus of our programming was on

1:29

conversations and building a

1:31

relationship

1:32

and then it would be accumulating in

1:34

photo portraits

1:37

it changed it changed with covet in

1:40

march

1:41

because the senior care homes were shut

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down to the public

1:45

so for the safety i was of course not

1:47

allowed in

1:48

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

2:03

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

2:22

calling a senior uh on a regular basis

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for

2:26

um i guess it’s been five months now

2:31

um and building their own really special

2:34

relationships with seniors

2:37

can you talk about the impact of this

2:40

residency

2:41

on your artistic practice

2:46

um yeah i think before i’ve always had a

2:50

very relational art practice and i think

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all of my projects i i work with

2:54

a lot of different people um to build my

2:57

portraits

2:58

um so i’m familiar with working with

3:00

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

3:07

and sort of like coming in and getting

3:10

people involved and like

3:11

really quickly moving and so working

3:14

with this group of seniors

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a lot of whom had dementia i was moving

3:19

a lot slower

3:21

and it made me question sort of what a

3:24

collaborative

3:25

approach actually means and

3:29

how i was having conversations and what

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consent

3:33

meant with all of that along the way so

3:36

um yeah i think for me the slowness was

3:40

was uh it came with a lot more

3:42

intentionality

3:44

and and it came with uh sort of like

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questioning the speed of things and like

3:51

the the value of just like the

3:52

relationship building before

3:54

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

4:02

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

4:10

you know like we we came up together

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with these ideas of

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um you know

4:17

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

4:40

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

4:51

touching on that of since the seniors

4:55

really got to collaborate

4:56

with you on these projects do you want

4:59

to

5:00

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

5:08

those

5:09

um who were part of the the phoning

5:11

seniors together

5:12

program yeah i think that

5:17

the seniors at luther court i think it

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was

5:21

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

5:28

day by day that we were interacting

5:30

together

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and it was open to a lot of um

5:34

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

5:48

and routine so this is something that

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added

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uh variation to their day and uh

5:56

the ability to have this sort of choice

5:58

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

6:55

all of these relationships um

6:58

yeah and so being able to hear the

7:01

stories of

7:02

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

7:13

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

7:29

check out libby’s work thank you libby

7:32

thank you

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