Programs on creative aging

What would it mean for museums to treat creative aging not as programming, services, or care for a specific demographic but as a framework for rethinking participation in cultural life?

In recent years, the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, SUNY, with support from E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, has reframed the Museum’s relationship with older adults by focusing on their needs, desires, and capabilities rather than their limitations.

Situated within a public liberal arts campus that is shared with an integrated, learning-focused retirement community, the Neuberger Museum of Art operates at the intersection of contemporary art, lifelong learning, and community engagement. In this environment—where students, faculty, artists, and retiree residents coexist—the Museum has become a site in which age functions as a connective thread.

“By focusing on creativity as a lifelong cultural practice, the Neuberger’s creative aging programs position later life as an integral dimension of a broader intergenerational cultural ecosystem,” explained Dr. Tracy Fitzpatrick, the Museum’s director. “Creative aging is part of a broader institutional commitment to learning across the lifespan from early childhood education to university teaching and community-based learning.”

The latest iteration of the Neuberger’s strategic plan calls for “sustainable programming geared to older adult learners” and envisions the Museum at the forefront of academic museums nationally in the field of creative aging.

Recent steps include a series of hands-on, studio-intensive arts learning workshops specifically designed for adults aged 55 and better that were introduced to explore both artistic inquiry and the social dynamics of aging. Each centered on a distinct artistic medium—printmaking, painting, drawing, and sculpture—while resisting conventional pedagogical hierarchies. Led by teaching artists affiliated with Purchase College and the surrounding artistic community, the workshops invited participants to approach artmaking as a process of experimentation, material discovery, and collective exchange. Artworks from the Museum’s permanent collection served as points of departure for studio investigation, linking historical and contemporary works to personal exploration and imaginative interpretation.

At the Neuberger, this shift has meant recognizing older adults not primarily as audiences for cultural programming but as participants in the production of cultural knowledge.

E.A. Michelson Philanthropy’s support allowed the Museum to pursue this work with continuity and depth. In this context, creative aging has become less about programming and more about perspective. The future may depend on how seriously we embrace and engage the creative capacities of later life.

For more information about the Museum’s programs for creative aging, intergenerational learning, and related educational initiatives, contact contact nma.education@purchase.edu.