Artist Anton Kats undertook a multi-year residency between 2013–2016 at Westmead Elderly Resource Centre and Carlton Dene Care home.
For a Walk With… addresses the politics of care and housing in the Westminster. Through the three years of the project, the artist documented everyday life in the care homes as they underwent a process of privatisation. Running workshops, collaboratively producing maps, drawings, post cards and a film with workers and residents, Kats observed the different speeds in the care home, from the fast-paced workers juxtaposed with the mostly seated residents listening to the radio or watching television. He took many walks with the residents and care workers in order to explore how through walking, both as part of the everyday routine of the care home and in the surrounding neighbourhood, there can be a point of departure to work together on the issues of care, dementia and redevelopment.
Through the project, the politics of care and redevelopment became linked to issues of memory and the inclusion of the residents and care workers in the decision-making processes concerning changes in the neighbourhood. The residues and the outcomes of the project find their form in walks, films, screening and events, social interactions, discussions, photography and maps.
The film For a Walk With… launched in 2017.
