I found out about Everywhere At The End of Time by exploring collective narrative into music. This album, lasts six hours, and focuses on the process of dementia. It was highly acclaimed and raised awareness within young people about the importance of empathy towards carers and people suffering from dementia.
This was a big turning point for me. I listened to the whole album and felt absolutely transported into the emotional and confusing ride of falling victim to such condition. I decided to explore this further by reading about The Caretakers process.
In 2011, Kirby released An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, attaining critical acclaim for its exploration of dementia. And then he decided to take it further by exploring it through its stages.
It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL998ajnjN4
Kirby’s interest in memory loss and the journey of dementia is similar to my approach to the emotional journey of cancer caregiving.
To find such an artistic reference was a crucial turning point for me because it confirmed the feedback I kept getting, explore beyond writing.
I then thought of music, a discipline I have always been keen on exploring but due to my lack of musical abilities I never thought I could. But then I thought – wait, why not? We live in a hyper connected world where ideas can still happen even if I am not necessarily the one making it, I can still be the one directing it or producing it, the one with the content and research a vision. This idea felt exciting, fresh and out of my comfort zone.
It would mean I would have to explore a process I never had before, and I would have to put all of my life learnings throughout this masters in practise.
- confidence
- leadership
- communication
- clarity
- collaboration
- research
- pitching
- vision
Would it be too crazy to turn these narratives into music? I thought. And what sort of music? with lyrics, no lyrics? what genre? I decided to eliminate any barriers that could stop people from having access to it – I’d leave it up to interpretations and emotions. Therefore, it only made sense to stick to experimental, electronic, classical – no lyrics: no language barriers. No voices: no gender bias. Just music, just emotion, just feeling the journey – the rest if up to interpretation.
It felt right. It felt timely. It felt unbiased and fresh.
I’d then structure the experience of going through cancer caregiving into four fragments:
I frustation
II sadness
III strength
IV Love
In no particular order – but from all of the emotions and comments all of the cancer caregivers mentioned, all tend to fall into some sort of the above categories.
Some include:
Hopelessness, hopefulness, anger, guilt, defeat, injustice, depression, love, care, compassion, empathy, sacrifice
As a short reflection, coming across The Caretaker’s work showed me how the process of an illness, or of a journey can be depicted through alternative narrative forms. And though, it might not be my background, I still have a voice and a vision – and I can work collabortively to express it. I have worked and researched these emotions meticulously for such a long time, I am aware they can be done justice through music.
What I have learnt within myself is that there really aren’t many excuses as to why we can’t try something, if we have a vision and a purpose, most things can be done. The key is to be able to find people who are willing to believe in it, a drive and a solid foundation of research for everything to make more sense. I am proud of myself for taking this step, it’s an unexpected one for me, one that might or might not help with representation and empathy-creation but that’s for me to find out in my next intervention when the music piece is done! & if it’s not well received, that’s okay – that’s another learning and a new beginning.