On Monday, May 20, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) held a panel titled, “Artful Aging: What Museums and Arts are Learning from Each Other about Creative Aging” during their annual conference in New Orleans.

Ed Friedman, Executive Director at Lifetime Arts moderated the panel which also featured Annie Montgomery, Director of Education at Lifetime Arts; Lindsay Lewis, Program Manager at Aroha Philanthropies; and Sonnet Takahisa, former Director of Strategic Education Initiatives at the Newark Museum.  

The group of experts discussed the growing field of Creative Aging as well as the ways in which museum environments can be inspiring to both teaching artists and older adults as places for fostering social, intellectual and artistic learning. Through dialogue with attendees the panelists emphasized the need to promote healthy aging in America; discussed what successful arts education programming for older adults in museums looks like; and shared how collaborations between funders, Creative Aging organizations, and museums across the country are driving data collection and research.

“Museums are accustomed to running all sorts of programs, but specifically focusing on sequential Creative Aging programs is new to many. This was a real opportunity to plant seeds for future collaborations,” said Annie Montgomery.

 

Photo credit: Ellen A. Michelson, Founder and President of Aroha Philanthropies.