All That Follows

Grandparents’ stewardship of future generations and mutual appreciation from both generations was a feature of conversations with participants in the Age In The Frame project. This self-designed project on the experience of ageing included recording the views of older people from the ages of 60+ and teenage participants from the ages of 16 -20 and responding to these with 2D artworks. It was conducted at the end of 2019 until 2021 when it was interrrupted by the coronovirus pandemic. There was much discussion of intergenerational mixing, which was generally seen as something desirable by all ages. Here are some quotes which were influential when I was making the image below, called All That Follows in response to these discussions.

“I love listening to my grandparents’ stories.” (participant:17 yrs)

“Old people know things: they’re out of the whole fuzz of being young.” (participant: 17 yrs)

“We want intergenerational things.” (participant: 87 yrs)

“My grandson says, ‘you’re old Grandma but you’ve got to live to 100’. I’ll do my best.” (participant: 74yrs)

“I think if you have something you know you’re here for and you know that you’re kind of making a contribution towards, it makes a big, kind of like, focus.” (participant: 18 yrs)