Memory Generation: A Conversation between Sara Zatz and Sherrine Azab

In October, Artistic Director, Engagement Sara Zatz and collaborating artist Sherrine Azab (A Host of People, Detroit) completed a 1-week creative residency for Memory Generation, a new theater project exploring experiences of people living with dementia and family caregiving. Over the summer, Sherrine and Sara, along with their colleague Andrew Morton, a community advisor on the project, initiated project development with a series of conversations with other artists who are creating work around dementia and caregiving.

This new work is still taking shape, but it carries forward a history of trust, experimentation, and belief in what performance can hold. Sherrine and Sara sat down to talk about their inspirations, and challenges, entering into this period of creation.

Sara: Over the summer, we initiated a series of conversations with other artists responding personally and creatively to dementia and caregiving. I found those conversations to be so profound. To share with people who think creatively about the whole world around them, and that creativity helping to navigate the absurdity of dementia. Being in that space with folks who could speak in metaphors has been really moving to me.

Sherrine: I think one of the particular things about being an artist and a caregiver is that other artists that haven't experienced it, don't know how to respond. I felt so seen being in those Zoom rooms with other artists that knew how hard it is to balance this thing we've been working so hard our whole lives to try to be, which is an artist, and also to care for this person that's helped me make this life. Or it’s the opposite, “it’s really complicated, and I still have to give my time and energy and care and space, and what is that?” There are a multitude of experiences.

Sara: Sometimes, after the intensity of being in dementia-land, I just really need to get outside, be in nature, and walk around a lake. I've also found really specific objects to hold onto have been really meaningful. I have this rock that I've been carrying with me from the day that my dad got his neurological assessment. It was in a very corporate office park, and there was a planter with no plants in it, and it was just full of polished black rocks, and I took one. And I've been carrying that around; it’s become a kind of meditation stone. It's a literal touchstone of finding myself in the story that is and is not about me.

Sherrine: I think it's related to nature, but I just need silence. I think I need more silence in my life now than I did before. Because the constant repeating when I'm caregiving is draining in a way that I've not experienced in other social settings. So getting to be quiet, where I don't have to talk, or don't have to repeat, or to not have to figure out how I'm going to get out of this loop. Which, side note, I do think we're interested in how to make these loops beautiful because I think we all have experienced repetition being really beautiful, and so how can I actually find the beauty in this again?

There's this poem that I wanted to share this with you, Sara, because we are gathering things that really move us, and though it has nothing to do with dementia and memory loss, it feels related to how fractured our reality feels right now between, this ongoing war and the craziness of our country, and still trying to find joy and meaning in our everyday lives.

The beginning of this poem says, “I want a word that means okay and not okay. More than that, a word that means devastated and stunned with joy. I want the word that says, I feel it all at once.”

That feels really right to me about this moment that we're living in, and also being a caregiver, because, one of the things that I mentioned a lot in the artist group was, I've never felt feelings of victory like I have in relation to caregiving, and I've never felt sadness, anger, annoyance, sorrow, joy, accomplishment in this way. And that there's all of that in the spectrum of this journey, this experience. I want to find a way to share those moments and layered feelings.

Sara: There's so much in art-making about dementia, novels and films that's about all the loss and devastation, all of which is real. But also there's a lot of joy, play and humor that is renewed in different ways. I'm interested in looking at some of those joyful aspects in this process of wanting to make an interview based piece with caregivers and people living with dementia. There is a desire to create a sense of comfort for those who are in grief for their person that they feel like they've lost, even though they're still with them.

Sherrine: I also want to explore expanding our notion of reality in the moment. Could we build an imaginative experience that considers an alternate reality that a person with memory loss may be in, that we as caregivers or other people in that moment don’t have the privilege to access? I also want to capture the laughter and the ridiculousness of the caregiver at the same time, and I think there might be moments that may seem disconnected from each other but that mirror these real moments we have experienced of shifts and pivots.

Sara: There is something about the quality of time and the nature of conversation, that requires this ability to let go. I think it's a big part of the step in caregiving, to be like, “okay, we're going to accept that my loved one is saying something that is objectively not true, but that's what makes sense to that person or that they need in that moment,” and just to have this moment of radical acceptance, even if it is not my reality. You start asking yourself what does it mean to be living in my reality, and to be able to let go, because I think we're holding on so tightly, and there's this door that you walk through at some point where you let that go.

Sherrine: It's important to me that [in the creation of this project] that a sense of performance and theatricality is present, and that that's a part of the container for the audience and participants, and that people understand it's an artistic experience. It gives us the elasticity for some of these interstitial moments that are I'm hoping outside of the everyday. And that we are uplifting the truth through this theatrical experience, that everyone needs and gives care throughout the journey of our lives.