Written by: Jeff Caplan, Community Dialogue Catalyst

At Tuesday morning’s meeting Nina Simon enthusiastically began with an overview our last meeting. The recap introduced the five big ideas that C3 members felt the projects should focus on. You can view the slides here.  Nina introduced also introduced the artists/MAH Staff who will facilitate seniors expressing these ideas:

1. Visitors will understand the diverse causes and impacts of loneliness on seniors.

•   Gina Orlando will coordinate a photography project by seniors and of seniors that illustrates the causes and impacts of loneliness.

2. Visitors will build empathy by experiencing what loneliness and isolation feels like for seniors.

•   All Senior are invited to submit artwork expressing loneliness for inclusion in the exhibition.
•   Cid Pearlman will facilitate 3D scenes/sets that represent senior isolation and disconnection, further activated by performance and videos with dancers and seniors.
•   Ry Faraola will facilitate Life size game of senior life for visitors to directly experience challenges and triumphs of being a senior and experiencing loneliness

3. Visitors will honor and learn from the wisdom of culturally-diverse seniors.

•      MAH staff facilitated a brainstorm on the idea of a Wisdom exchange for visitors and seniors. Possible formats: Lucy’s Advice Booth/Wisdom Hotline/ Correspondence/Snail Mail

4. Visitors will build a collective vision of a connected, inclusive, inter-generational future in Santa Cruz County.

MAH Staff will coordinate warm inviting scenes to inspire shared visioning.

•   MAH staff facilitated brainstorming participatory activities for visitors to create this vision

o   Carmen Lomas Garza Paintings of intergenerational families living together

o   Videos from Seniors thriving around the world

5. Visitors will take action beyond the exhibition to end senior social isolation.

•   MAH staff received ideas about Action cards for visitors to take direct action through our advocates and their programs to end senior social isolation. We will brainstorm this in November.

The remainder of the meeting consisted of the C3 members brainstorming on how to visually represent these big ideas for 5 of these projects. You can view the notes here.

We heard a lot of great ideas at this meeting. MAH staff will be meeting with artists to hone in their project idea based on C3’s suggestions. By our November C3 meeting we’ll have a plan to share with you based off of your suggestions. That next meeting is from 10am-12pm on November 20, 2018. If you have questions or comments, or need a ride please contact Jeff@SantaCruzMAH.org