Architecture and Aging

The Depiction of Home in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her

Authors

  • Annmarie Adams McGill University
  • Sally Chivers Trent University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v2i.130741

Abstract

Our paper focuses on Sarah Polley’s flm Away from Her as a commentary on places purposely constructed for care. We draw on cultural and architectural analysis to uncover the flm’s reassertion and yet subtle critique of the troubling association of aging with decline, to which dementia provides a shortcut. We analyze the flm’s architectural nod to themes of “home,” the importance of natural light, and the depiction of circulation spaces as a means to further understand the association of old age with darkness and disorientation. The paper shows how the flm’s projection of typologies of “home” is indicative of the continuities and ruptures experienced by residents with dementia and their family members. We demonstrate how Polley’s flm uses real-life architecture as a set, such that her characters (who are not yet elderly but who are experiencing what the general public understands to be disorders of old age) navigate the apparently dark and confusing interiors of long-term care, bathed in profuse natural light. While the flm is a drama about illness and love, the conficts about where to live, how to care, and what comprises fdelity, the role of long-term care architecture in Away from Her shows how twenty-frst-century lived experiences of dementia play out away from “home".

Author Biographies

Annmarie Adams, McGill University

is former Director and William C. Macdonald Professor at the School of Architecture, McGill University, Montreal. She is the author of Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870-
1900 (McGill-Queens University Press, 1996), Medicine by Design: The Architect and the Modern Hospital, 1893-1943 (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and coauthor of Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession (University of Toronto Press, 2000). Readers may write to Annmarie
Adams at annmarie.adams@mcgill.ca.

Sally Chivers, Trent University

is Professor of English Literature and Founding Executive Member of the Trent Centre for Aging and Society at Trent University. She is the author of From Old Woman to Older Women: Contemporary Culture
and Women’s Narratives and The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Cinema, as well as journal articles and book chapters on representations of aging and disability in Canada and beyond. She is also the coeditor of The Problem Body: Projecting Disability on Film. Readers may write to Sally Chivers at sallychivers@trentu.ca. 

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Published

2015-01-01

How to Cite

Adams, A., and S. . Chivers. “Architecture and Aging: The Depiction of Home in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her”. Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 2, Jan. 2015, pp. 131-57, doi:10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v2i.130741.

Issue

Vol. 2 (2015): Age, Culture, Humanities (Forum: Age and/as Disability; Position Papers)

Section

Research Article

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Annmarie Adams, Sally Chivers

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