In Germany, the power of art in the twilight of life

A growing number of museums bring stimulation and solace to dementia patients through regular tours

The guided tour for dementia patients at Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, western Germany (Photos Gordon Welters/New York Times)

As a private tour of the museum’s contemporary art exhibition began, there was little to differentiate the older visitors from any others. Gazing up at a copper sculpture of a large tree, a former housewife, murmurs: “That’s nice!”

“Beautiful,” a retired industrial mechanic agrees. “Maybe it will shake.”

Walking around the room, another woman points to the copper cones that caps the tree’s long, twisting branches. Do they play music? The former housewife draws up close to one to say hello.

These visitors come from many walks of life, but most are residents of a local adult care home for dementia patients in Essen, western Germany. And they are at the museum participating in a programme for people with dementia.

Sybille Kastner, who runs educational schemes at the Lehmbruck Museum here in Duisberg and is a pioneer in programmes for people with dementia, gently brings the group together. She presses a button, and the tree shakes. As the room fills with murmuring voices, Kastner explains that each of the copper cones plays a different story of sorrow.

Kastner pauses to let this sink in. Then she tells the group the work is titled Turtle Sighing Tree. What do they think?

In Germany, tours like the one in Duisburg are increasingly common (NYT)

There is silence. Finally, Gertrud Schnauz, a day patient at the home, speaks up. “You need time to tell a story,” she says.

Yes, Kastner agrees, it takes time to listen to another person’s sorrows. “Also, when you’re happy,” Schnauz counters. “Listening takes time.”

In Germany, which has the largest number of people over age 65 in Europe and a robust system of publicly financed local museums, tours like this one are increasingly common – found in major museums in Berlin as well as more obscure institutions in provincial communities.

Kastner, the Lehmbruck Museum’s outreach coordinator, first developed her programme in Duisburg, a former industrial hub in northwestern Germany, in 2006, after a colleague’s mother was told she had dementia.

“At first, we did it for our colleague,” Kastner says. “We saw how hard this situation was for her, and we thought, ‘What can we do to make things easier?’”

Since the co-worker had often brought her mother to the museum, Kastner says, they decided to see if that would help. It did, and over a series of lunchtime discussions with her colleagues at the museum, Kastner decided to create the programme. They got in touch with the local Alzheimer’s association and set up some group tours.

“After that, it went very quickly,” Kastner says. “We determined that it was very interesting for people.”

Kastner leads the group from the copper tree to a piece by the German visual artist Rebecca Horn, who cast a pair of her own pointy-toed party shoes in metal and affixed them to a steel slab. Now warmed up, the visitors share their observations eagerly. “I’m a practical person,” says Henny Mimitz, the former housewife. “You can’t wear those shoes outside.”

A pair of slowly waving metal rods sticking up from the shoes catches the eye of Muhammed Nasrudinsada, the former mechanic. “Like a cradle in the wind,” he says. “But you can’t wear those shoes outside,” Mimitz says, shaking her head.

Finally, Kastner again asks: what did it mean? Heidrun Mann, a resident of the home who has been silent until now, speaks up. “It’s over,” Mann says. “There are no more steps to take.”

Kastner asks how that feels. Mann reflects, looking at the artwork. “To me, it’s beautiful,” she says.

Sybille Kastner (centre) runs educational programmes at Lehmbruck Museum and is a pioneer in schemes for people with dementia (NYT)

As the group moves to a sculpture made of three large, golden rings titled Intertwined in unending love, Thomas Seel says the tour is good for his wife, who suffers from aphasia. “She’s lost the ability to speak,” he explains. “But she’s paying attention, she’s engaged. It’s good to see.”

Over the coffee and cookies that are part of each tour, Marita Neumann, who runs the adult care home, says activities like these are important.

“We see a lot of people who are very interested, very awake – things are possible we didn’t think were possible,” she says. “People with dementia also need adventures. They need to get out, just like us.”

Inge Rasch, another day visitor, says she enjoys the museum tour because she likes company. “You get lonely, otherwise,” she says. “I also love coffee, but I don’t need to come here for that. I can drink coffee at home.”

Loneliness is something the spouses and family members of the patients also understand, says Hanni Stemmann, who used to bring her husband to the dementia programme. He died, but she still comes by herself. “They’re nice people,” she says, looking around the museum’s light-flooded space. “And when you’re suddenly alone, it’s hard to get out.”

After the group leaves, Kastner reflects on how to create a museum tour for dementia patients.

“Normally, what you do in a tour is you find a recurrent theme, and build on it,” she says. “You can’t do that here. But in the moment, you can observe beautifully, and talk about it. It’s very intense, it has a different quality. You can experience wonderful moments.”

Kastner says her work with people with dementia has taught her to be a better listener. “Even when someone doesn’t speak, you need to dignify their presence,” she says. “To say, ‘You are seeing.’ That is also a contribution.”

Dementia patients take part in a workshop at the museum (NYT)

Video requires sequential memory, so it does not work well for the tours, but there are otherwise very few limitations on what kind of art Kastner and her colleagues choose to highlight. An exhibition about the value of art included a constructivist piece – a glass case full of coins, with a water tap – that spurs a lively discussion about how each person has handled their finances.

Kastner, who holds art-making workshops every two weeks in addition to the tours, says that both caretakers and art professionals have noticed that people with dementia may enjoy looking at and making art, even if they were not interested in it when they were well.

Kastner notes that, on her regular art tours, people sometimes have trouble connecting with artworks because they put so many interpretive or analytic layers between themselves and what they are looking at. People with dementia, she says, have an easier time of simply reacting emotionally to what they see.

She does not tell the group that Rebecca Horn had turned her party shoes into art after she had suffered a stroke and could no longer wear them. The group nonetheless pick up on the artist’s themes precisely.

“You just have to experience the space that art creates,” Kastner says. “It requires a deep trust in art, and in the visitors.”

© New York Times