For the last three weeks in May 2025, Olive Pascha has been our 3rd artist-in-residence. She is a writer and director for film and theatre whose work often focuses on everyday relationships and moments that can be easy to miss. She is currently funded by ACE to develop a new play about care – how it moves through people’s homes, routines, and relationships.

The project aims to shine a light on the important work that carers do, to show the beauty in caring relationships, and to challenge some of the common misunderstandings about what care really means.

As well as being a writer, Olive also works part-time as a carer, and brings this experience into her creative work. During her residency, she has been spending time with residents and carers – listening to their stories, having conversations, and observing daily life.

Olive will also be taking photographs, which she often uses as part of her work. These images – featuring residents, carers, and the everyday details of life in the almshouse, offering another way of thinking about care and how it feels from the inside.

Olive will be coming back to St Mary’s to show her play as a work in progress later in the year.

We wish her all the best with the project and value that this part of our lives, that is so under-represented, is being researched and treated with the respect that givers and receivers of care deserve. Our residents Brian, Sheila, Linda, Pat, Betty, Lillian & Eileen have all spent time with Olive and, along with their carers can’t wait to see the project develop.