Documentary shows creativity, imagination have no age limit

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This article was published 24/12/2024 (450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

André Hall-Grusska’s hands tremble only a little as he draws and shades. The work is kaleidoscopic, the colourful chaos ordered through clean, meticulous lines.

Last November, Riverview Health Centre, where the 62-year-old with Parkinson’s is a resident, exhibited his work for the hundreds of people who pass through the facility every day.

“It was fantastic. I had about between 40 and 50 people show up (to the opening). I sold some pieces and then I also donated my work to the Riverview Health Centre.”

Hall-Grusska is one of a few Riverview residents profiled in A New Beginning, a documentary by filmmakers Candice Antazo, Brittany Stewart and Stephen Gilbert.

The 40-minute film premièred at the Park Theatre recently and may show at festivals. The documentary can be seen at Riverview Health Centre’s website and on the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s YouTube channel.

Archival photographs and interviews with family and residents help to colour in the lives of the film’s characters, who were figure skaters, business owners, artists, husbands and wives before they came to Riverview.

Conditions affecting memory and mobility complicate residents’ relationships with their established identities, and there are poignant reflections in the film on ailing and aging.

But we also see strong personalities seeming to revel in their new milieu — gardening, enjoying outings around town and joking around as they play pinball.

“This is heaven!” exclaims Diane (Aboonie) Blais, as she receives a footbath and manicure at a local spa.

“Living doesn’t end just because you come here,” says filmmaker Antazo, who is also a therapeutic recreation adviser at Riverview. “You don’t have to be afraid to come. Yes, it may look different, it’s a vulnerable stage to be in, but it’s a new chapter. It just looks different.”

A New Beginning is also a chance for Riverview to showcase aspects of the “person-directed living” approach it is attempting to implement, a framework that aims to foster great autonomy among residents of personal care homes, assisted living communities and the like.

This approach to care focuses on everyday things, such as giving residents’ greater choice about when they take baths, get up or have breakfast. It also means providing residents with more space to pursue hobbies rather than following assigned activities, and to exercise their voice through resident councils.

Gladys Hrabi, CEO of Manitoba Association of Residential & Community Care Homes for Everyone (MARCHE), singles out Riverview as a regional leader in the person-directed living approach. But she says there’s a lot more work to be done across the sector to give care home residents “more of a choice about how they live their lives, and not to just exist in that space.”

Hrabi advocates for updated regulations and more funding to help the sector better reflect these ideals.

In the meantime, she suggests that non-profit personal care homes can innovate in this area because they’re often tapped into religious and cultural communities that can fundraise on their behalf.

Manitoba’s operational funding for personal care homes, which covers expenses related to utilities, staff salaries, food and other essentials, comes from the government via the regional health authorities. Fundraising can help bolster other services that improve quality of life, such as jeopardized recreational programs.

Thanks to smart fundraising, Riverview has a “healthy budget” for programming of the kind that supports Hall-Grusska’s work with supplies and other resources, Antazo says.

The artist — who is also a chairman of the Riverview Residential Council — says the activities help with his Parkinson’s and hopes A New Beginning can show the world what it can mean for a care home to become more than just an institution.

“This is your home. I have the freedom to do whatever (I) want to do,” he says.

Hall-Grusska also hopes to use the platform Riverview has given him as momentum to pursue exhibitions with contemporary art galleries in Winnipeg.

But, for now, he doesn’t have much interest in selling his work.

“Some pieces I’ve given away to some people because they say, ‘There’s such spirit in the work.’ I say, ‘Well, thank you,’” he says.

“So instead of selling a piece, I would give it to him. His heart is filled with joy. It’s worth a lot more than money in the end.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca