On Saturday, March 15th, at 2:00 PM, the Kalamazoo Lyceum, the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at WMU will host a special event in room 1303 of Dunbar Hall, exploring themes of positive aging and intergenerational connection. It features filmmaker and author Sky Bergman, known for her 2018 documentary Lives Well Lived. It also offers a reception at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts highlighting multi-media projects by WMU students. Bergman and Toni Woolfork-Barnes speak with Cara Lieurance about how the community can participate.
The event is the culmination of a series of programs initiated by Woolfork-Barnes, director of OLLI at WMU, who has been working to bring Bergman to campus for several years. She emphasized the collaborative nature of the project. "The way I think of this and the way I approach what I do is that this really is a collaboration," she said, highlighting the involvement of Dr. Sandra Borden from the Ethics Center at WMU and Matthew Miller from the Kalamazoo Lyceum.
Bergman says her Lives Well Lived project began with her grandmother, who was approaching her 100th birthday. "I was looking at turning 50 and looking for positive role models of aging and just not finding them out there in the media," Bergman said. She interviewed 40 individuals over the age of 75, with a collective life experience of 3,000 years.
The event at WMU will feature a presentation by Bergman, followed by a reception at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts at 3:30 PM, highlighting multi-media exhibits by WMU students. "They interviewed individuals who are well beyond 50 from the Ecumenical Senior Center in the Kalamazoo community and from our Osher Lifelong Learning Institute members," Woolfork-Barnes explained.
Both Bergman and Woolfork-Barnes emphasized the importance of intergenerational connections. "At the end of the project, when they're doing their presentations, the students and older adults realize that they have far more in common than their differences and really the only difference is their age," Bergman said.
The event is free, but reservations are requested. The link to the event registration is here.
