Creativity takes courage: our residents have it in spades!

At Southern Cross Care we have been supporting more than 2,000 residents and clients over the past eight years to create original artworks for the prestigious South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA). 

We’re doing it again in 2024 with our new SALA exhibition called Totems open to the public weekdays, 9am-4.30pm, until 5 September at the Bowler Family Cafe, Carmelite, in Myrtle Bank. 

Work on Totems has been underway for some months across South Australia, with our residents and clients developing unique creations using blocks of wood, pipe and ceramic tiles in what has been a highly creative, social and tactile artistic experience. 

Art can stimulate the senses and provide spaces for mindfulness, as well as create social contact. Art can unlock memories and it can be empowering, especially for artists who have creative freedom and control over what they are creating. 

This year, the level of participation and creativity going into Totems has been awe inspiring. 

Totems has been included on the official SALA program. 

After the exhibition, the totems created by residents are going to become permanent installations around the state, including in residential care home gardens so they can be enjoyed by our community. 

The Men’s Shed at The Pines Retirement Village has helped prepare the art materials and a squad of volunteers has lent a hand out too. Totems has been an enthusiastic community effort and our artists should all be very proud.