Age & Ageing: Old Skin (360G-Wellcome-218325_Z_19_Z)

With an ageing global population, questions of how we see older people are central to science, culture and the creative industries. Because of its importance, Age and Ageing is one of the current research themes that the V & A Research Institute (VARI), which brings together curators, academics, artists, designers and audiences, is seeking to investigate. The Museum is looking at it through a contemporary lens, considering today’s ageing population, its implications for our world, how we design it and our systems for living together, but also in terms of its connections to the past. The V & A seeks to explore different readings and conceptions of age, ageing and inter-generational relationships, from different historical periods and a range of cultures, in order to stimulate new thinking about creative solutions to today’s challenges. In undertaking the secondment, I will be moving across time and place to look at responses to the visible signs of age on the surface of the body: wrinkles, sagging skin, scars, pigmentation changes. In writing blogs, giving talks, and creating virtual collections of images and objects related to the ways in which we read bodily transformations over time, I will support the museum's aspirations to reach wider audiences.