Ian Beesley's dementia banners re-opens Bradford Industrial Museum

'The Unfurlings: banners for hope and change created by people living with dementia' will see a number of large, colourful banners go on display at Bradford Industrial Museum in Eccleshill from Wednesday, May 26.

Bradford-born artist Ian Beesley, designer Martyn Hall, cartoonist Tony Husband and poet Ian McMillan, have worked with people with dementia and their carers to create a series of 16 large banners. The designs are inspired by political banners highlighting inequalities, to campaign for a better understanding and representation of people living with dementia.

Mr Beesley worked on the banners with the Shipley-based group, Face It Together, for a year until November 2019.

It also coincides with Dementia Action Week, which starts on Monday, May 17.

The ‘A Life More Ordinary’ project originated from research led by the University of Exeter, which aims to support people to live as well as possible with dementia.

Through the project, the artists have worked with a number of groups affected by dementia around the country, including in Kent, Oldham, Preston, Exeter, York, Leeds, Bradford and Scarborough, with each area taking a different approach tailored to the group.

The idea of focusing on banners originated with a group the project worked with in York, which campaigns for better support for those living with dementia who travel by public transport.

Mr Beesley said: "The banners are created by groups of people who have dementia and their supporters. It's a positive thing.

"The banners project was finished in November 2019 and all geared up to go on tour, nationally, for the next two years, but then the pandemic stopped that.

"Hopefully people will see it as a positive and very colourful exhibition that deals with a difficult subject and will inspire people to do other things.

"Each museum has got 12 banners. They are two-metre square-sized each.

"It's a nice space at Bradford and they are going to hang them from the ceiling.

"The banner that the York group created was so striking and so effective that all our other groups wanted to create their own banners.

"Banners are powerful symbols of self-reliance and tangible proof of existence and as such have proved to be a fantastic way of articulating many of the problems faced by people living with dementia."

Jill Iredale, Community Curator - Bradford Museums & Galleries, said: "The banners show a different side of dementia, that's what's really good about it.

"The banners come directly from the people who are living with dementia themselves.

"Seeing things through the perspective of the members of the dementia groups, makes it kind of special.

"It's a good exhibition for people to come back to us to look at. It's like a burst of colour."

The banners will also go on display at Thackley Museum of Medicine in Leeds and at venues in Exeter and Poole in Dorset.

Bradford Industrial Museum will initially be open to the public on Wednesday to Friday 10am to 4pm and Saturday and Sunday 11am to 4pm.

The Unfurlings exhibition will run at Bradford until January 30 next year.