With Many Voices offers people living with Alzheimer’s Disease the opportunity to express themselves through art and proposes a model for communication that is still possible. In urging people to resort to their imagination rather than to their memory, to their creativity rather than to their logical and cognitive capabilities, we enhance each participant’s ability to communicate. After an experimental phase in 2011, the program became a regular fixture of the Palazzo Strozzi Education Department’s programme and is open to families as well as to care homes. The Covid-19 pandemic has made a major impact on people living with dementia by further increasing their sense of isolation. In the context of With Many Voices we have developed a number of “remote” ways of imparting continuity to the experience of the program and staying close to participants. 

The workshop will illustrate the project’s development in its online modality and include a practical session to allow us to reflect together on how to transform an experience where presence (both of the work of art and of people) is one of the key features.

Irene Balzani, Education Department, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy

Luca Carli Ballola, Geriatric Educator, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy