Summary

How can we introduce modern technology to seniors and at the same time share their experiences, needs, memories and knowledge? The Life Filming method focuses on content and form, using images as a point of departure. This lifts participants over the barriers of technology.

We live in a visual culture, surrounded by images and films. Equally necessary as reading and writing is the ability to take pictures and read images with awareness. The path to critical thinking is to learn how a camera works and how an image is made. When we know these first steps, we can also depict, illustrate, question, visualise and identify the different perspectives of the world in which we live together.

When we talk about perspective, we are saying that we need to keep an older person’s perspective. However, it is rarely seniors who are at the centre of the process – more often than not, an expert on the elderly is brought in to give their perspective.

Life Filming can provide people with a tool to give shape to something that may be difficult to express in another way. It introduces the latest technology, which in turn prevents digital exclusion.

Background
Life Filming started as a joint project with the Health Promotion and Prevention Unit at the City of Gothenburg, city district Centrum, and the Centre of Culture and Health at the University of Gothenburg. Life Filming is inspired by the artistic methods used in Barnfilmskolan at Valand Academy.
City district Centrum started the first Life Filming workshop in February 2014 at Mötesplats – Kulturhus, a cultural centre for senior citizens Since then, around 120 participants have created films and images with energy and a sense of community.

The method
The first step is to make sure that everyone has a tablet. Those who do not have their own can borrow one during the period of the workshop, which is five weeks.
We then start directly with camera functions and assignments such as taking portraits, searching for triangles and shooting opposites.
After each assignment, participants show their images in a small exhibition.

Participants are given homework for the week between each workshop.
This includes tasks such as filming or photographing What makes me happy, What makes me angry.

We then start the next workshop by looking at and discussing the images and films produced.

Gothenburg – a city for all ages
The contents can be changed to obtain information in new ways, about our urban environment for example, through the choice of different tasks in the workshops.
A joint project was started up in autumn 2016, launched by the City of Gothenburg’s development centre, Senior Gothenburg and the Health Promotion and Prevention Unit in the City of Gothenburg’s district Centrum. The theme chosen for this project was outdoor environments. The images and films were produced to increase the city’s knowledge of what is important for seniors in the outdoor environment. Seven participants created films and images from their perspective of what they felt was difficult in the current urban environment.

Link to the films:

Life Filming – Age-friendly City (in Swedish)
If you would like to know more, please contact:
Christian Falk, Senior Services Coordinator
City of Gothenburg
Phone: +46 31 – 365 78 26
E-mail: christian.falk@centrum.goteborg.se

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):