Emerging Elders
What does it mean to be an Emerging Elder?
Emerging Elders is an intergenerational storytelling project where youth and seniors are invited to engage in open and inquiry-based dialogue with each other to explore opportunities to foster the skills that encourages flourishing in life. By creating shareable, multimedia outputs that allows unstructured, free-flowing oral stories, we enhance intergenerational learning spaces with new capabilities that supports the storytelling of seniors and combats both ageism and social isolation. Emerging Elders aims to create intergenerational relationships where support is both given and received, reclaiming responsibility not only for our individual growth and resilience, but also for future generations.
Our Story
Since 2014, VACS has activated dialogue and sparked arts engagement around the topic of cultural resilience through community events and an exhibition. Through 2022, VACS is embarking on the new initiative of Emerging Elders to deeply explore how the nature of open dialogue and art can nurture personal and community flourishing.
Artists and collaborators will be invited to interpret and respond to the new initative, contributing to the 2022 Emerging Elders multimedia storytelling focused on the art and resilience theme.
Our Work
Limited Edition Publication
Stories of Emerging Elders
Collaboration with the Kerrisdale-Musuqeam Story Circle
Community events
Meet The Team
Emerging Elders Featured
“Eldering is a state of mind that allows the processing of personal and cultural experience into knowledge and the passing of that knowledge from one generation to the next. And this process requires a meta-level attitude to allow personal and generational knowledge to be rethought, revealed, recombined, transformed, and embodied.” – Keiko Honda
