Government policies and nursing home operators will need to navigate a delicate balance: how to protect older people from COVID-19 while maintaining their rights to social engagement.
Older people who engage with the arts live longer than those who take part infrequently or not at all.
The \
Campaigners from Silver Voices, led by Dennis Read (pictured) and the Digital Poverty Alliance accused the industry of 'putting profit before safety'.
Crete, the largest Greek island, offers many experiences for seniors and older travelers. Seniors can explore the island by visiting ancient sites like the Palace of Knossos and the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. They can also stroll through towns and villages, such as Chania and Rethymno. Crete features beaches for those interested in nature, such as […]
Written by Lisa Eriksen, museums and non-profit consultant Reposted from Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) blog, courtesy of Lisa Eriksen and Elizabeth Merritt. Check out more musings on the …
Gobeklitepe ist 18 Kilometer vom Zentrum von Sanliurfa entfernt und liegt innerhalb der Grenzen des Bezirks Örencik. 1995 begannen die Ausgrabungen in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Sanliurfa Museum und dem D
Chief curator Soyoung Lee shares some of her favorite objects and a few projects she’s excited about.
Simone Handbag Museum, South Korea (source)
Since Holocaust survivors are getting older and their stories are fading away, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is putting curators in regions where survivors live to preserve their memories.
Margot Frank, older sister of Anne Frank, with her grandmother walking in 1929
Volunteers are hosting slap-up teas for isolated older people in Cardiff, and the latest to join them is the National Museum for Wales
Last week the long-anticipated Renzo Piano wing opened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. For the first time in its history, the Gardner will have space for both temporary show…
Tuesday Our last day in Budapest, we headed to the Ethnography Museum, which according to my guidebook is the largest of its type in the world. There's a permanent exhibition on Hungarian cultural history, which was interesting. We learned about how felt hats were made, women's clothing, furniture, farming, and all sorts of aspects of Hungarian life. Here is some Hungarian decorated furniture and dishes. Everything is very colorful. This picture made us laugh for a really long time. The little girl is in a baby stand, though she looks perfectly happy to be there! There was also a temporary exhibition on the musical instruments of the world! There were some recordings playing, but mostly we could only look at instruments. However, to appeal to children or childlike adults like me and Kristen, there were some interactive bits. We tried plucking various strings, different kinds of drums, and percussive instruments. The instruments were attached to bins with strings so that they wouldn't migrate, and one of the sets had become very tangled, so we sat for about fifteen minutes to untangle the huge knot. Singing in harmony all the while, of course, since the acoustics were so excellent. Another exhibition showed the history of jeans, which have only been made in Hungary since the 70s. They're called "farmers" in Hungarian, which I find very strange. After we left the museum, we went to search for good coffee for Kristen, and ended up getting milkshakes as well. Then a quick stop on the way back to the hostel resulted in me buying a new swimsuit, which fits better than most swimsuits do. Plus, the forint-dollar exchange rate is good! The taxi ride to the airport was significantly faster than it should have been, and though we both feared for our lives at some point of the journey, we made it to our flight with plenty of time to spare. We flew Aer Lingus, which was nice, but I was surprised that they charge for everything on the flight, even water. Good thing we had brought snacks! Once in Dublin, we found someone to ask about buses, and took a bus into the city centre. There's a bus stop only a couple of blocks away from our hostel, and the bus stop where we got off (three later) wasn't too far either :) Our hostel in Budapest was really homey feeling, with spacious rooms and a really welcoming feeling. It was also designed more like an actual home. Our Dublin hostel is really nice too, and is clean and well-run, but it feels very institutional. Automatic dryers in the bathrooms, water that you push a button to turn on that switches off all by itself (annoying in the shower). So it's a good hostel, but we have no inclination to hang out here, like we did in Budapest. Different styles of hostel! Wednesday First full day in Dublin! Our hostel comes with a full Irish breakfast, which is tasty and incredibly filling. 100% protein. There's a banger (sausage), puddings (like little sausages that are somewhat bread-based?), rashers (Canadian bacon), and an egg (sunny-side-up). Plus juice and tea and milk. And cereal and toast if you want it. It's absolutely delicious. The French would hate it. We walked from our hostel to Trinity College, which was founded by Elizabeth I and is the oldest college in Ireland. Here's Kristen on the campus: The college is also home to the Book of Kells, which is a 9th century illuminated manuscript, containing the four gospels. Scholars can tell that it was meant to be decorative rather than used, though, since there are some errors in the text that were marked, but not fixed. The pictures are beautiful though! The exhibit showed how the manuscripts were made, from what went into the ink to how the books were bound. It was really neat, and after we saw the Book of Kells itself in the treasury, we got to go up to the Long Room of the library, which is the most heavenly library I've been in. Thousands of books in a big barrel-vaulted room, none more recent than 1890. You could smell the knowledge. There were some books on display as well, with beautiful illustrations of the world's wildlife. Kristen could tell you the author, but I've forgotten :) The area around Trinity is called Temple Bar, and is a young area with lots of fun shops and pubs. One of the first things we stumbled upon was an environmental education resource center, with tons of free literature and posters for people to take. Kristen is currently working in County Mayo doing this type of project, and she's spent weeks looking for this type of resource. Ireland's organization isn't the best in the world, so she didn't know anything like this existed. We collected copies of all of their pamphlets and posters, so now Mayo will have a big collection of information, plus order forms if they want more. What a find! We wandered around the shops a bit, then ate lunch at a pub with a wonderful name: Kristen got fish and chips, and I got a lamb stew that was wonderful and filling... it seems like my life in France is protein-deprived, and I'm making up for it on this trip. Our next stops weren't very far away: St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral. The latter is the oldest church in Dublin, and the two are famous because their combined choirs sang the first performance of the Messiah. I was surprised that both are now Anglican! During the time when (as I like to put it) England borrowed Ireland, the churches were converted. So there are lots of nice niches in the walls empty of statues, there are tombs of war heroes, and other distinctive markers of important Anglican churches. Here's some stained glass from St. Patrick's: And this is a tile from the floor, which has an Irish take on the fleur de lys: This is Christ Church. We were too late to explore, but we went for a smoothie and came back for evensong. The lay vicars and the girls' choir sang a lovely collection of music, and it was a beautiful service. The choirs were superb, and I felt bad for them that the audience was about twenty people. It was pretty magical. On our way back to the hostel to make some pasta for dinner, we passed a pub that was advertising their Wednesday night live comedy! Such a lucky accident. We returned after dinner, and for only seven euros saw four comedians (well, seven euros plus what we spent on drinks-- Fat Frogs, which are Smirnoff Ice, orange breezer, and blue WKD. The result is a lemon-blue raspberry-orange drink that has very little alcohol and tastes like it has none). Three of the comedians were really good, and one has potential. Ireland isn't the right audience for him, since most of his material was about him being gay. The audience just couldn't get into it. But overall it was a great night, and we had a really fun time. Thursday Today we're heading to the Guinness storehouse, then we've got a bit more time in Dublin before we hop on a train for County Mayo, on the western coast of the country. We'll be there for a few days, so I'll get to meet Kristen's host family and enjoy some rural Irish adventures. But we won't have internet, so I'll update my blog once I'm back in France on Sunday!
LensCulture announces the 38 winners, jurors’ picks and finalists of the 2021 Portrait Awards
When Jessica Rodriguez proposed to her girlfriend, they never expected the engagement to go viral. But thanks to the sweet reaction of one stranger, it has.
This photograph is in an album by the photographer Alexander Schadenberg, titled "Northern Luzon types" description “People in a salon”. Other than Northern Luzon location and date was not given but in later life Alexander Schadenberg lived in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines and died in he Philippines in 1896. Owner: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Museum of Ethnology Dresden, Germany.
From The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things.
Beatrice Wood in her studio--the above photos via Coolhunting Artist /writer and ceramicist, Beatrice Wood, best known for her luminous lusterware and her signature form, the chalice--and her longevity--She lived and worked up to her 105th year which she atributed to "chocolate and young men" and a positively-minded life. She was one remarkable woman, beguiling to the end. A retrospective of her work is currently at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. To learn more, you can also visit Frank Lloyd Gallery.
“In many cultures, clowns would do things that were considered forbidden.”Over the past 30 years, this general unease has blossomed into full-on clown...
Annibale Caracci Portrait of an Enslaved Woman Italy (c. 1580s) Leeds, England Walters Museum [source] [source]
A couple of weeks ago the news was reporting that Westminster Council wanted to close soup kitchens to stop the homeless gathering there and, in effect, making the place look messy. This story put me in mind of a few pieces of Victorian Journalism I have read on the subject of the homeless – there are many out there – and I had a look through my little collection and found this 1870 piece, ‘The Terrible Sights of London and Labours of Love in the Midst of Them’ by Thomas Archer. Whilst many aspects of our society have made huge advancements since the late Victorian age, doesn’t the establishment described below, written in a time when the poor were supposedly forgotten about and ignored, put suggestions and councils like Westminster to shame? If you’re unfamiliar with the story, then here is a link to it. The House of Charity Is surely so named in the scriptural sense of that last word in its title; for there is no reminder there that its inmates are to forfeit their claim to respect in return for alms. Plain in its simple comfort, and with a quiet order in its family arrangements that must make it a blessed retreat for the sorrowful, a calm resting-place for the harassed, it is all that its name implies, and more; for it belongs not only to the charity that giveth of its goods to feed the poor, but to that which 'thinketh no evil.' It is a fine old house, standing at No. 1 Greek-street, Soho, and has certain historical associations belonging to it; for it was the town mansion of the celebrated Alderman Beckford, and still exhibits some of the decorations of ceiling and chimneypiece, and the breadth and ample space of staircase and passage, which distinguished the buildings of that time. By the way, it is interesting to know that the carved mantel and its supports, formerly belonging to the apartment that is now the committee room, were so fine an example of decorative art, that the promoters of the present charity obtained a handsome sum for them when they were sold for the benefit of the good work undertaken there. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the patron of this institution. In the lower part of the house there are two large rooms on opposite sides of the hall, well warmed and lighted, and used as sitting-rooms, one for male, the other for female inmates. They are supplied with books and newspapers; the latter in order that those in search of situations may see the advertisements; while the women are partially employed in making or mending their clothes, or in such needlework as may be given to .the three or four more permanent residents. The large room used as a refectory is plainly furnished, the men sitting at one table, the women at another; and the quantity and description of the food is such as would be provided in a respectable family; tea or coffee, and good bread-and-butter, morning and evening; meat and vegetables for dinner; and a supper of bread and cheese. There is no limit as to quantity; and if one could forget the distress which brings them thither, one might regard the family as employés of some well-ordered establishment, with good plain meals, and a clubroom on each side for meeting in after business-hours. The dormitories, which occupy the upper floors of the two wings, are admirably contrived to secure that privacy the want of which would be so repulsive a feature to persons of superior condition. Each long and lofty room is divided into a series of enclosures, or cabins, by substantial partitions of about eight feet in height; and in each of these separate rooms, all of which are lighted from several windows, or by the gas-branches in the main apartment, there is a neat comfortable bed and bedstead, with space for a seat or a box, and a small table or shelf. Between thirty and forty persons can be received here at one time; and those who are in search of employment, or who require to go out during the day, leave after breakfast, and return either to dinner or to tea. For a fortnight, or in many exceptional cases for a more extended time, the House of Charity becomes the home of those who, but for its aid, must apparently sink lower and lower, till they become not only utterly destitute, but in danger of being deeply degraded and even vicious. Here they find helping hands and judicious advice, as well as ready sympathy, and numbers of them are directed to situations; while the sick are placed in hospitals, or allowed to remain in the home, and attend as out-patients until admission can be found for them. The poor women especially – many of whom are ladies by previous position and education – find it a refuge indeed, and learn that the sister who has charge of the whole household arrangements, as well as those who have more definite duties in relation to the female inmates themselves, and the rather arduous correspondence, accounts, and inquiries, may be appealed to with an assurance of hearty sympathy. On part of the open area at the back of the building a chapel has recently been erected, where the warden himself officiates at morning and evening prayer; and it may well be believed that to many of those weary souls this sacred spot, with its pretty cathedral-like ornaments, its stained glass, and the suggestion of quiet and repose in its subdued light, may represent the retracement of the steps that have ended so disastrously, and yet so blessedly; and· may, in some sense, be associated with that outcome into renewed life for which their presence in the institution gives them reason to hope. Standing within this building, however, I notice certain small blank unfinished spaces on the walls, and amidst the general appearance of completeness, an incompleteness not obvious at the first glance. I am pleased to learn, in explanation of this, that only the special contributions to the chapel fund are spent here, and that no more is done at the time than there is money to pay for; so that for the actual completion of details, and the addition (greatly needed) of a covered way from the house to the church-porch, funds are patiently awaited. When I speak of the necessity for a covered way, it reminds me that many of the inmates come here sick as well as sad. To-night, in a warm and comfortable workroom near the dormitory – a room that is used, I think, as a kind of day-nursery for such children as are admitted – there are two young women sewing at a table, where they have just been supplied with tea and bread and butter. One of them is suffering from a consumptive cough; the other is an out-patient at a hospital for disease of the hip, and has to wear an instrument until she can be admitted as a regular case. It may be mentioned that the expenditure is frequently increased because of the infirm condition of many of the female inmates, who not only require more comforts and special food, but whose inability to do the work of the house entails the necessity of employing paid substitutes. This fact accounts for a large number of cases sent to hospitals and convalescent homes. Clothing is also an item of expense; and the committee very earnestly appeals for gifts of apparel, either new or old, since without such aid many of the inmates cannot procure situations. Would you know who these inmates are? The case-book would reveal a series of affecting stories; for in it are the plain statements – needing no touches of art to make them painfully interesting – of ladies, wives of professional men, brought .to sudden widowhood and poverty; of men of education cast adrift by failure or sickness, and not knowing where to seek their bread; of children left destitute or deserted; of women removed from persecution, and girls from the tainted atmosphere of vice; of weary wanderers, who, in despair of finding such a shelter, have spent nights in the parks; of foreigners stranded on the shore of a strange city; of ministers of the Gospel brought low; of servant-girls defrauded of their wages, or discharged almost penniless, and cast loose in the giddy whirl of London streets. It is not alone for its temporary aid in affording a home that this most admirable House of Charity is distinguished; but it affords a good hope also by seeking situations in cases where peculiar circumstances make such a search difficult – for bereaved and impoverished ladies, for educated men, as well as for domestic and superior servants. Its supporters give this aid also to the work; and as they number amongst them many ladies and gentlemen of social influence, employment is frequently discovered for those whose misfortunes would otherwise be almost irretrievable. Of 225 men, 351 women, and 79 children who came before the warden and council, and were admitted during the last official year: 243 were provided for more or less permanently; 110 were sent to homes, orphanages, and hospitals; 83 returned to their homes; 18 were passing on to homes or places of service, and stayed here on their way; 12 were emigrants waiting for their ships to sail; 80 left because of the expiration of the time allowed for their remaining; 13 left of their own accord; And 21 were dismissed. In the record of the social condition of the inmates, we find 17 tutors, schoolmasters, and teachers; 18 governesses and schoolmistresses; 47 clerks, shopmen, and travellers; 47 menservants, porters, and pages; 5 engineers; 2 engravers; 1 officer; 7 soldiers; 3 sailors; 7 surgeons, apothecaries, and chemists; and most of the rest representing a large number of respectable trades - including 1 'planter' – and some situations, the, most remarkable of which was that of 'master of a workhouse.' Of matrons, housekeepers, and nurses, there were 61; of maids-of- all-work, 86; and of other servant-maids, 113; while of needlewomen there were 20. Of course the daily provision for the family of about thirty is considerable, and the kitchen is in almost constant use, while the laundry is scarcely sufficient for the needs of the establishment; but this regular succession of meals by no means represents the culinary operations of that glorious house. For there is a 'sick-kitchen' to look after; that is to say, a kitchen adjoining the regular kitchen of the establishment, to which poor applicants from the neighbouring district bring their cloths and basins, and carry away nourishing food to their poorer invalids. At this very moment the soup for tomorrow's supply – rich in the aroma of meat and savoury vegetables – is concocting in a huge copper, from which the sister-superintendent will deftly ladle it into basins or jugs, and pass it to anxious recipients waiting at the wicket by the window. And this is not all either, for 300 of the sick and hungry little ones of Soho sit down twice a week to a sick children's dinner table in the schoolroom of St. Mary, of which our warden is the vicar; and the caldrons of stew, as well as the great pots full of mealy potatoes, are all set boiling here at the grand old mansion in Greek-street. The greater part, if not the entire cost, of these dinners is defrayed by the contributions of children who are better off in the world; and send their savings, or a percentage of them – pence, fourpennypieces, sixpences, and shillings – to be devoted to this purpose. Indeed, a special appeal is made to the children of well-doing parents. While I am on this subject, I cannot refrain from mentioning in parenthesis that the committee of that admirable association, the Destitute Children's Dinners Society, in their third report, state that during the year ending September 30th, 1869, forty dining-rooms were opened in forty of the most impoverished localities of the metropolis; and 110,803 dinners supplied to the ragged and destitute children attending schools in their respective neighbourhoods. Among those who receive the benefits of the institution in Greek-street, the large number of domestic servants represent a class to whom such a refuge is most acceptable and most necessary. It would be well, indeed, if there were other houses of charity for temporarily destitute or distressed persons of the better class; and it would be well also if a larger number of institutions were established for the reception of female servants looking for a situation, or temporarily unemployed through sickness. There are several now in operation under the direction of the Female Servants' Home Society, the office of which is at 85 Queen-street, Cheapside. There is another at 132 Walworth-road, forming one of the operations of the South-London Mission; and there is the Trewint Industrial Home in Mare-street, Hackney, where thirty girls over fifteen years of age are restrained from vice, to which they had been exposed by being without situations. It is the comparatively helpless position of the female servant out of place, and cast loose to find a home for herself, which gives these special institutions such a claim. To what kind of home is a young woman ignorant of London and its ways – or if not entirely ignorant, with a flighty hankering after a little liberty, but with no present intention of improper companionship – likely to be introduced? Say that she takes lodging with the charwoman, or rents a room with another girl of her own class, what is likely to come of it when her remnant of wages is nearly exhausted? Should she be of attractive appearance she is in danger of temptation every time she goes out after dark, and probably even in broad daylight; for the harpies who waylay her, know how to flatter her vanity or to work upon her fears for their own purpose. While should she come to the end of her money, and even have begun to part with a portion of her clothes and her poor little bits of finery, to pay for a lodging and a meal, her ruin probably is imminent. Among the multitude of lost and wretched women who throng our streets, and make (next to its deserted and destitute children) London's most terrible sight, the ranks that represent domestic servants brought to the deepest degradation of vice and misery are by far the fullest.
Idén is részt veszünk a Múzeumok Éjszakáján, így ismét remek programokkal és érdekes kiállítá...
Virtual trips to museums found to foster social inclusion and improve physical and mental wellbeing
