22nd January, 2025.  EMAIL: shannon@dementiaspring.org

Announcing the 2024 Dementia Arts Impact Fellows Recipients benefit from a collaboration with Dementia Spring, which provides subject-matter expertise, marketing, and technical assistance to realize project completion The Dementia Spring Foundation is pleased to announce this year's recipients of their Dementia Arts Impact Fellows:

● The Gold Room, an interactive portrait exhibit with memory cafe by Juan Carlos Zaldivar, MFA#

● 73 Seconds, a multimedia performance by Jared Mezzocchi, MFA

● The Art of the Matter, a film festival and roadshow by Expose Dementia and C. Nathaniel Brown.

Now in its fourth year, the Dementia Spring Foundation's Arts Impact Fellowship provides funds and support to visual and performing artists who are sharing new stories of dementia, or working with the dementia community to inspire creativity and joy through the arts.

The Arts Impact Fellowship is a collaboration between these talented artists and Dementia Spring, which provides support to bring the projects to life, subject matter expertise on aging and dementia, technical guidance, and assistance with social media and marketing:

“The 2024 Impact Awardees join a fellowship of like-minded artists, innovators and activists who are working hard to change the fundamental narrative of Alzheimer's and dementia in this country,”

SDaid Dr. Marc Rothman, geriatrician and co-founder of the Dementia Spring Foundation. “This year's cohort really embodies what it means to fully engage with the dementia community, meet them where they are, and reflect back stories and experiences that all people can relate to.

I'm thrilled to see their work come to life in 2025.” Fellows were selected from over 85 applicants from across the globe. They join a growing fellowship of artists whose work Dementia Spring has featured in Dementia Arts Spotlight or supported since 2021. A little more about the projects: 73 Seconds is a multimedia performance exploring the relationship between a son and his mother, who is living with dementia. Told on the stage by veteran theatermaker Jared Mezzoccchi and based on his own life experiences, 73 Seconds shows family members how to meet their loved ones where they are today by looking at past memories of this family, including the mother, Rosemary's, time working for NASA and the duo's loss of their husband/father. 

The Gold Room is an exhibition of portraits of those living with dementia. The exhibit is set to travel and offer immersive audience experiences, such as memory cafes, in the same space. Artist and educator Juan Carlos Zaldivar, currently a professor of media study at the State University of New York at Buffalo, aims to show audiences the value of strength-based care, in which caregivers focus on the abilities that remain in the person living with dementia, and explore the intersections of care, community, race, and disability. The Gold Room is expected to travel to both upstate New York and Miami, Florida.

The ART of the Matter, is a multimedia film festival and national tour that kicks off March 28 to 30, 2025, in Linthicum, Maryland, at the Maritime Conference Center, at the Expose Dementia Conference. Brainchild of actor and producer C. Nathanial Brown, the festival features films depicting dementia including The Present, and Remember Me: Dementia in the African American Community, among others.

Following the festival in March, Dementia Spring and Expose Dementia will bring arts-based dementia awareness to multiple cities nationwide through 2025. For more on all the 2024 awardees, visit Dementia Spring's website here: https://dementiaspring.org/news-updates/announcing-the-2024-dementia-artsimpact-award-recipients /. ### ABOUT DEMENTIA SPRING The Dementia Spring Foundation is a bridge between the dementia and arts communities.

We fund artists and arts organizations doing original and programmatic work with the dementia community, we raise awareness, and we inspire creativity and joy among people with dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. Dementia Spring highlights a new artist every week through our Dementia Arts Spotlight Series, provides annual grants to artists and arts organizations through our Dementia Arts Impact Fellowship, and brings together the artistic and dementia communities to celebrate the impact that the visual and performing arts can have on the lives of those with dementia, their families and caregivers.

MORE INFORMATION