In 2018 Luminate made the decision to change the way the organisation works. The successful annual festival, which has taken place nationwide since 2012, will now happen every second year, freeing up capacity and resources to enable the organisation to develop a year-round programme of creative ageing work in alternate years.
As a result, there will be no creative ageing festival in 2018, but Luminate will return in 2019 with a difference, taking place in May instead of October.
The format will remain the same with events happening throughout Scotland from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway in community centres, theatres, art galleries, care homes, local arts venues and site-specific locations. As always community groups, cultural organisations and artists will be invited to put forward their own events for inclusion in the wide-ranging programme and a call for proposals will be issued in late 2018, with a deadline for submission early in 2019.
The development of Luminate’s 2018 year-round programme has proved to be an enormously successful move, allowing a range of exciting initiatives to flourish with the support and collaboration of Luminate.
"For example, on Tuesday 18 September together with Age Scotland and The Ageing Lab join us for an exhilarating afternoon of presentations, performance and discussions with inspirational speaker Billie Jordan, founder of New Zealand’s The Hip Op-eration Crew at the City of Edinburgh Methodist Church, 25 Nicholson Square, Edinburgh. Some of the best examples of arts and older people will be explored including Billie's fascinating journey, alongside dance performance by Edinburgh Dance Base's PRIME and a panel discussion on themes of arts, ageism, barriers and representation.
Other year-round events have included development days for older emerging artists led by Magnetic North Theatre Company in Galashiels, Glasgow and Inverness, and a public seminar in Edinburgh sharing ground-breaking creative work with and for people living with dementia led by Professor Sebastian Crutch from Created Out of Mind.
A longer-term programme is the Scotland-wide Unforgotten Forces initiative, partnership of 15 Scottish charities supporting older veterans in Scotland, part of which Luminate is working with Erskine, Scotland’s foremost care provider for veterans and their spouses, on a three-year artist in residence programme in Erskine’s care homes in Bishopton, Glasgow and Edinburgh."
Details of further new partnerships and initiatives this autumn will be announced shortly and will include an exciting intergenerational project in collaboration with Starcatchers, Scotland’s national arts and early years organisation.