Three artists, nine primary school children and a university research team respond to the Oliver House care home for older people in York in Three artists, nine primary school children and a university research team respond to the Oliver House care home for older people in York in The Trouble With These Boiled Sweets, a new exhibition at City Screen, York.

Using photography, drawing, digital printmaking and a digital screen, each gives a unique recording of the time spent with the residents at the home in Bishophill Junior.

“The exhibition looks at differing perspectives of the ageing process and seeks to elevate the status of our elders through a less cynical directive,” says York artist Phil Reynolds.

“It’s also a celebration of the collaborations involved so far, and a platform to help develop relationships between generations and concerned thinkers.”

The participating artists have been brought together by Phil, who is also showing abstract work at the New School House Gallery on Peasholme Green at present.

His work at City Screen combines drawings done on site and paintings produced taking information from photographs.

Showing alongside him is Lancashire photographer Yan Preston, who has travelled frequently from Rochdale to invest in what she finds a fascinating exercise. In addition, incidentally, she has been working with the Castle Museum on a Chinese culture project.

The third artist is Patrick Smith, from York, a fine-art printmaker by training who now is pursuing painting. For this show, Patrick’s works are digital products; he has taken photos and then mixed them with Phil’s drawings.

As for the university research team’s involvement, led by Professor Mark Blythe, the team has sought to engage older people using technology, as part of a project entitled Landscapes of Cross Generational Ageing.

“This exhibition has been funded by them, and supporting artists in their project has been a successful way to achieve some of their aims,” says Phil.

One of the artistic aims of the show is to make the Oliver House “more permeable”.

“This means trying to make the care home less airtight and more accessible,” says Phil.

“We achieved this by bringing in the primary school children, who are members of an after-school art club run by Lucy Monkman, out of St Oswald’s Primary School in Fulford.”

The children created traditional portraiture and experimented with a drawing package called artrage that was hooked up to a projector.

“We’ve done three two-hour sessions, which we feel have created a stir for both Oliver House and St Oswald’s,” says Phil.

“The children have got at least one portrait each in the show, and the university is putting up a digital screen to show their work and progress.”

Assessing the impact of the project, Phil says: “The excitement of mixing these very different approaches and the sensitivity of the subject was the motivation to gather the works in one place, and we now hope to take this show on to other venues.

“Sheffield Hallam University, where I studied, has shown interest. We feel these works may give people ‘tangibility’ to the care-home domain and its largely forgotten residents.”

The exhibition will run in the upstairs corridor at City Screen, until January 19.