I Remember When I Was You
by Rebecca Hilton
9 Nov 2021
(10min)

These statements are drawn from exchanges I had with residents and care-givers at a Swedish Residential Elder Care Home during På Plats [In Place], an artistic research residency held on Thursday afternoons throughout the Fall and Spring of 2018/19. The residency was an initiative of “Space and Place in End-of-Life Care,” a transdisciplinary project that was part of DöBra [Good Death], a Karolinska Institute innovative healthcare research program exploring attitudes toward, and experiences of, death and dying in Sweden. Conversation was my primary method for both social engagement and artistic research. Each conversation was spontaneous and improvised, there was no set schedule, no prepared questions, and no particular agenda. In the context of each conversation, I asked for consent and received permission to share these statements in an artwork I would make at some time in the future. The conversations were one-on-one, they varied in length and ranged far and wide in content, but the topics of aging, dying, and death was never too far away. Aging (if we are lucky), dying and death await us all. We will all need some kind of care as we grow older, we will all need a place in which to be cared for, and we all need to prepare ourselves for the fact that we keep learning, changing, and expressing ourselves up until the very end of life. These thirteen statements are designed to provoke contemplation of these uncomfortable, inevitable truths. They prompt us to consider: where do we want to be at the end of our lives, and how do we want that place to look, to sound, to smell, to taste, to feel?

(FIG. 1)
I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS YOU; Conversation keywords: identity, vocation, nature; Date: Thursday, 6 September 2018; Time: 4.15–4.30pm; Site: a corner table by a large window in the dining room on ward 5B
(FIG. 2)
MY LAST PLACE; Conversation keywords: identity, vocation, nature; Date: Thursday, 6 September 2018; Time: 4.15–4.30pm; Site: a corner table by a large window in the dining room on ward 5B
(FIG. 3)
I MISS OUTSIDE; Conversation keywords: identity, vocation, nature; Date: Thursday, 6 September 2018; Time: 4.15–4.30pm; Site: a corner table by a large window in the dining room on ward 5B
(FIG. 4)
THIS IS THE LAST PLACE I EVER IMAGINED I WOULD BE; Conversation keywords: the past, the future, autonomy; Date: Thursday, 20 September 2018; Time: 5.00–5.15pm; Site: a wheelchair near the lift on ward 7B
(FIG. 5)
IT'S NOT HOW IT WAS BUT IT IS HOW IT IS; Conversation keywords: memory, television, home; Date: Thursday, 4 October 2018; Time: 4.30–5.00pm; Site: a chair near the television in the sitting room on ward 7B
(FIG. 6)
IT'S NOT ALL BAD; Conversation keywords: food, friendship, care; Date: Thursday, 1 November 2018; Time: 6.00–6.15pm; Site: a bed in a private room on ward 5B
(FIG. 7)
I LOVED WHAT I FOUND IN ME WHEN I LISTENED TO HER; Conversation keywords: food, friendship, care; Date: Thursday, 1 November 2018; Time: 6.00–6.15pm; Site: a bed in a private room on ward 5B
(FIG. 8)
I HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN HAVING IT DONE THE WAY I WANT IT DONE OR HAVING IT DONE AT ALL; Conversation keywords: privacy, autonomy, aesthetics; Date: Thursday, 15 November 2018; Time: 6.30–6.45pm; Site: the central table in the large dining room on ward 5B
(FIG. 9)
GETTING OLD IS A SHOCK, A SLOW SHOCK; Conversation keywords: ageing, expectations, realizations; Date: Thursday, 29 November 2018; Time: 5.00–5.15pm; Site: a wheelchair near a large fern in the hallway on ward 7B
(FIG. 10)
WE JUST KNEW EACH OTHER, WE DIDN'T NEED TO SAY ANYTHING, WE JUST KNEW WHAT TO DO; Conversation keywords: caring, working together, knowledge; Date: Thursday, 6 December 2018; Time: 6.00–6.15pm; Site: a bench in the kitchenette on ward 7B
(FIG. 11)
IT'S EITHER TOO SOON, TOO LATE OR THE RIGHT TIME; Conversation keywords: dying, temporality, sensitivity; Date: Thursday, 20 December 2018; Time: 5.00–6.00pm; Site: a desk in the manager’s room on ward 5B
(FIG. 12)
THE ADVICE I WOULD GIVE IS: BE NICE TO PEOPLE AND THINGS; Conversation keywords: gardening, mementos, advice; Date: Thursday, 28 February 2019; Time: 5.30–5.45pm; Site: a wheelchair near the television in the sitting room on ward 7B
(FIG. 13)
I SEE LESS, I HEAR LESS, I FEEL MORE; Conversation keywords: emotions, boredom, isolation; Date: Thursday, 22 March 2019; Time: 5.30–5.45pm; Site: a bed in a private room on ward 7B