Until February 13, y Gaer, Museum & Art Gallery has an exhibition of work by the artist Pip Woolf - Matter of Identity: I, you, we & other.

The exhibition contains installations developed through a period of intense drawing and making, informed by conversations with people living with dementia, scientists and activists involved with dementia friendly communities.

Pip explained: “In March 2014 I first met Rhiannon Davies and Trish Richardson when they were delivering a workshop about arts and dementia at Arts Alive, Crickhowell

“The experience offered an insight into the potential value of working as an artist alongside people whose mental health was altering, people whose behaviour may have moved away from the fragile veneer of social etiquette to a more chaotic form of communication, not unlike the one permitted me by my title ‘artist’?

“Encounters often involved the question ‘where are we going?’ and it took me a long time to realise the importance of the question. It is not just a random set of words which, when repeated, can become irritating, but actually a question worth reflecting on.”

Pip continued: “40,000 years ago my ancestors drew a line. Different people in different places and at different times made their marks, marks still visible today, marks still able to inspire wonder and questions about identity and meaning.

“My mother was 103 when she died in 2014, she had been living with my sister near London. Visits took about four hours to get to see her. Sometimes on arrival I was greeted with ’who are you?’ not full-blown dementia, whatever that means, but certainly a mind compromised by years of being alive and with virtually no short-term memory left. Even then she was essentially herself, a powerful force as anyone who met her would know.

“At the same time a close friend had had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and I found myself fascinated by the then current statistics relating to dementias: these numbers together with my perception of a widespread careless use of pronouns, who exactly is the ‘they’ we refer to? sparked the body of work Dementia Pronouns: matter of identity, I , you, we & other .

“The materials and processes of the work I have made have arisen from intense drawing. The work is further informed by conversations with scientists at UCL, Manchester and Cardiff Universities, community activists involved in dementia friendly communities, two residencies with care homes, on-going attendance at a dementia drop and individual friendships.”

At the heart of the work is a belief in the enduring power of mark making to hold the essence of identity.