Bristol’s Engine Shed innovation hub has teamed up with city charity LinkAge to stage an exhibition exploring the devastating impact that isolation and loneliness can have on the lives of older people.
Called Step Into My Shoes, it takes as its backdrop the shocking statistic that almost 5m older people say that the television is their main form of company. 
With an estimated 11,000 older people experiencing loneliness in Bristol, Engine Shed and LinkAge are eager to highlight the issue to the business community.
Step Into My Shoes can be seen at Platform 14, the dedicated exhibition and public art space which forms the entrance to Engine Shed next to Temple Meads railway station.
While the first part of the exhibition focuses on the loneliness, part two will highlight how LinkAge works with younger people across the city, using their skills and experience in using technology, to help older people feel more digitally, as well as socially, connected.
Engine Shed director Nick Sturge said: “Core to showcasing the range of tech, creative and low carbon businesses operating in the city is the engagement with people who don’t know about or think what we do here is for them.
“We want to encourage, inspire and inform about opportunities in science, technology, digital, creative sectors and entrepreneurship. We hope the business community will be inspired by what LinkAge do, to relate this to their own communities, their own families and how connectivity, whether it be through smart cities and Internet of Things or making use of a walking group with others, can have a significant impact across Bristol people’s lives.”
The exhibition highlights stories such as that of LinkAge participant Grace Holmes, who used to live a very isolated life and would spend days not leaving her home. Feeling very alone since her divorce and with all of her family living in South Africa, she felt that she only had one real friend in Bristol.
Now two years on, Grace is a changed person. After receiving a programme through her door, offering her the opportunity to get back out into the community, she now attends weekly line dancing and New Age Kurling sessions, as well as starting her own monthly coffee morning.
Grace said being involved with LinkAge had changed my life. “It makes you happier and more independent. It’s taken me out of my shell and brought me out to see the world,” she said.
Through the exhibition, LinkAge hopes to not only raise awareness of the effects that isolation and loneliness can have on an older person, but also hope to inspire people to help to change the lives of older people like Grace.
The exhibition is open daily from 8:30am to 5:30pm and runs April 28. Engine Shed’s Platform 14, named after Temple Meads railway station’s ‘missing’ platform, aims to highlight the diversity of opportunity within the hi-tech, low carbon and creative sectors within the Bristol and Bath city region through art.
LinkAge works with people aged 55-plus and local communities to facilitate inspiring social activities that enrich lives, reduce isolation and loneliness and promote active participation. LinkAge wants older people who may be marginalised and isolated to become active citizens, taking part in their local community and, most of all, having fun.
For more information about LinkAge Bristol, visit www.linkagebristol.org.uk
