Project overview
Every Piece Matters is an interactive art installation that responds to The Ageing Revolution by reframing medication use and later life care through the everyday experiences of older people. Instead of portraying ageing as decline or dependency, the work foregrounds meaning, relationship, and agency and asks what it would take to genuinely centre older people in how care is designed and delivered.
The exhibition comprises three jigsaw puzzles, each developed from qualitative research with residents living in residential aged care. Each puzzle features an image and prompt reflecting what residents notice, prioritise, and question about their medications including routines, relationships, moments of reassurance, frustrations, and concerns about dignity and autonomy.
Individually, each puzzle highlights a different dimension of resident centred care. Collectively, they form a broader picture of how pharmacy practice is embedded in everyday life. Conference participants are invited to assemble the puzzles collaboratively during breaks, engaging in a slow, tactile process that contrasts with the time pressured, task driven nature of care systems.
As pieces gradually come together, participants are encouraged to reflect on what is often fragmented or overlooked in medication related care, and how many small, relational elements must align to support flourishing in later life. In this way, the work positions participation as both method and message, contributing to The Ageing Revolution by valuing lived experience as essential knowledge for change.