How young artist/facilitators use their unsettled identity to develop creative ageing practice

This article explores the practices of three young artist/facilitators, illustrating how they use their own age identity to develop expertise working with older people in residential care homes. A research process of reflective dialogues reveals that they respond to the arts and drama based workshop practices at creative ageing organisation Equal Arts with a growing value of their youthfulness. A self-defined ‘unsettled’ nature facilitates their work with older people, some with dementia who also share an ‘unsettled’ identity. The young practitioners are able to operate positively through relationships with older people, as well as re-view and re-new their own identity as artist/facilitators.