When three older men with thinning hair are sitting at the table with a glass of wine, one says: “Do you remember what the thing’s last name was?” – “Bums!” replies the other. “Oh yes – the thingy!”, adds the third together. That’s how it is with forgetfulness. Everyone knows the desperate search for the names that should be on the tip of the tongue. If the requests in the corners of the brain are not exceptional, but the memory becomes more and more holes, one speaks of dementia. Humor can help take the fright out of the disease. At least that is how the well-known cartoonist Peter Gaymann approaches the subject and in recent years has designed a series of drawings comprising 132 exhibits in which he stages the widespread disease with a wink and yet always a loving look at the morbid oblivion. In Neuried, 26 drawings can currently be seen in the “Demensch” exhibition in the town hall.
Peter Gaymann, who lives and works in Schäftlarn, and the gerontologist professor Thomas Klie from Starnberg designed the exhibition in 2013. It has already been shown in several German cities. The municipal senior citizen representative Andreas Kobza has now brought her to Neuried. Since 2019, the community has been allowed to call itself a “dementia-friendly community”, a title given by the district office and which is associated with the task of creating a social environment for people with dementia and their relatives, enabling them to participate in social life and new, creative ones Finding ways to socialize. This is where the exhibition comes in.
When Grandma comes to the priest with her walker…
Disorientation, forgetfulness, the tendency to run away, not even recognizing your loved ones – cartoonist Gaymann captures all these symptoms of dementia in his drawings with his well-known loose pen. And you can laugh: when grandma with a walker no longer remembers her sins and the pastor invites her to take the sins of the past year. Or when the professor wants to buy the truffled salami in the library. The disease is a matter of perspective. The focus is usually on the deficits of dementia patients, and the exhibition promotes taking a look at their resources, even if they are strange.
The explanatory panels for the cartoons, which provide an insight into the world of dementia patients, can almost be read as instructions on how people should treat those affected: empathetic, pragmatic, respectful and with a lot of patience. Being demented and yet remaining human – it is not only in the title of the exhibition, it is also its message.
At the finissage on February 2, the artist Peter Gaymann will come to the town hall in person and draw a cartoon live, which will then be auctioned off with a signed signature. Proceeds go to the Alzheimer’s Society. The exhibition in the Neuried town hall, Hainbuchenring 9 to 11, can be seen Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and on Wednesdays also from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.