This year’s festival hones in on showcasing the experiences of persons living with dementia and caregivers to foster greater awareness around how persons living with dementia and their caregivers perceive dementia and navigate the world around them.

The theme for this year is Taste. It is a powerful sensory experience that triggers a rush of memories often long past or even seemingly forgotten. Food memory is a powerful time machine that can teleport a person to another time and place. It can also unearth deep-rooted memories of a person they loved and treasured in the past. These memories are often strong because they utilise each of the senses.

Most people have probably experienced a deep memory just by smelling something such as clean laundry, air after the rain, frying of belachan in the kitchen, etc. When the sense of taste, smell, sight, sound and touch are combined while eating, the memory can become more vivid.