Clients choose us to get their messages across because our campaigns arrest attention with bold creations grounded in local people’s real stories and experiences.

Dementia awareness campaign

darts was commissioned by NHS Doncaster to design a series of dementia awareness posters to provide the public with information about dementia. Working alongside people with dementia and their carers we used songs, poetry and photography to tell a series of personal stories.

These real stories from real people resulted in visually arresting posters that are now displayed in public spaces and GP surgeries across Doncaster.

Have you got 90 seconds?

Artists from darts spent two days in acute wards at Doncaster Royal Infirmary (DRI) talking to adults with Dementia to find out how positive interaction with others could improve their stay in hospital.
On average a patient with Dementia in hospital has only 90 seconds of positive interaction in a 24 hour period which can lead to feelings of isolation. We wanted to use creative activity to ask patients which conversations they value and to document through photography both moments of positive interaction and isolation.

Images of the seaside, photos of the artists’ Grandad in naval uniform and a bunch of white roses seemed to inspire the patients to talk about past events, feelings about their current situation and where they would like to be in the future.

"It is nice to think and ask questions. It’s nice to talk to people. Not because it’s the daily routine, but because you want to know about something."

Our job was to get everyone to see that even a small conversation with patients can make a huge difference. We encouraged the whole range of staff from nurses, doctors, porters, canteen staff and cleaners to think about the way they could interact more with patients with dementia.

Short ‘interactions’ took place alongside the exhibition to allow people to stop for a short amount of time, look and respond to the images. This then prompted to think about how they could increase their interaction.

After being displayed at DRI, the exhibition toured around Doncaster raising everyone’s awareness of dementia.

Reach Out is our latest creative health promotion project – this time we are searching for hidden carers in Doncaster. The project is funded by the DMBC carers development team.