A più voci (With Many Voices) is a scheme devoted to people living with dementia and their caregivers which the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi first launched in 2011. For each exhibition we organise a cycle of encounters designed for families and people in residential care homes, offering a pleasurable, stimulating and emotionally uplifting experience for sharing and seeking ways of communicating through the emotions triggered by works of art. The encounters are devised and conducted by Palazzo Strozzi’s museum educators together with geriatric educators.
Art lies at the heart of the scheme and all participants are encouraged to observe and to express their personal opinions in the presence of the exhibits on display in Palazzo Strozzi.
There are no right or wrong answers and each participant, whether senior citizen or caregiver, can share expressions, gestures and words. In A più voci each work of art is thus enriched with endless interpretations, and dialogue opens up new opportunities for establishing a relationship between the exhibit and the observer, between those conducting the activity and the participants, and between those suffering from dementia and their caregivers.
Observation of the exhibit on display can be completed by the creation of a story or a collective composition via a guided conversation to which each person makes a contribution with his or her own means of expression. Everything said is meticulously transcribed and published at the end of each exhibition.
Since the spring of 2016 the scheme has been supplemented by a workshop devised and conducted with artists. Virginia Zanetti (2016), Cristina Pancini (2017), Marina Arienzale (2018) and Caterina Sbrana (2019) have all taken part in A più voci.
