Look at me! Images of women and aging

This was a unique project which challenged the perceptions of older women in our society.

The Second World Assembly on Ageing in 2002 recognised a need to challenge stereotyped images of ageing, particularly in relation to older women. The use of visual methods as a means of allowing older women to tell us their experiences of ageing is one way of doing this but, at the time of the project, 'ordinary' older women had not had the opportunity to either comment on, or create, their own images of ageing. This project aimed to do precisely that.

We invited older women in Sheffield to join our creative workshops exploring images of ageing. The women were given the opportunity to create their own images of the ageing process. We exhibited these images at public venues in and around Sheffield in March 2011, to mark the centenary of International Women's Day.