“Awareness. It’s a word that appears in every mental health forum—whether the focus is on illness or promoting well-being. For years, the mental health community has been running awareness campaigns, evolving from printed pamphlets to 30-second Instagram reels. Haven’t we come a long way?

Art has long been a powerful medium for awareness. Whether visual, musical, or both, it engages people in ways that allow them to absorb information implicitly. Implicit learning — another word we have read in our psychology textbooks. When it occurs, people tend to take in knowledge without resistance, without the barriers of judgment or doubts. This is where our dementia experience comes in.

Working with the elderly—a group not easily understood—has its challenges. With an illness that manifests so uniquely in each individual, understanding their experiences is even harder. So, how do we bridge that gap? How do we make others feel what they go through?

During a team meeting, the head of DEMCARES (Dementia Care at SCARF), in his usual witty yet thought-provoking manner, posed a question:

“Do you even know what it feels like to not understand what’s happening around you?”

While we sat in silence, he added, “Maybe we need to experience that ourselves to figure out what kind of interventions truly help.”

That was the spark. Our overly enthusiastic team began tossing around ideas:

  • What if we created a space where nothing quite made sense?
  • What if we introduced disorientation, mirroring the confusion people with dementia experience?
  • What if we used everyday objects to depict these distortions?

With more questions fueling our creativity, we got to work. We explored ways to represent executive dysfunction, misidentification, misplaced objects, hallucinations, and repetitive speech. Inspired by immersive art exhibits, we designed an experience that offered a glimpse into what dementia might feel like.

First showcased at SCARF’s Center for Active Aging during Alzheimer’s Month in 2024, the response was overwhelming. Later, we brought it to Mindscape, SCARF’s mental health mela in January 2025, where it resonated deeply with attendees.

People walked out of the exhibit using words like “chilling,” “haunting,” “confusing,” and “What was I supposed to take away from this?” Did they, even for a moment, feel lost? Did they sense the urge to make sense of things? The need to escape? If a short-lived exhibit could evoke even a fraction of what a person with dementia experiences daily, imagine how truly chilling it must be to live with dementia.

Did we achieve to bring awareness out of this experience? I don’t know, but did it bring out some emotion and make people think about dementia being more than just forgetfulness? I certainly sure hope so.

We hope to take this experience wherever we can, refining it as we go. But we also recognize its limits—no simulation can fully capture what it really feels like to have dementia. The next step? Involving those with lived experience to help shape it further, making it not just impactful, but authentic.”