Idosos na pandemia: investigando os significados de envelhecer e sua relação com o fazer artístico

Abstract

Aging is the natural path of life for all human beings. The accelerated global demographic transition requires attention to the new challenges that present themselves, especially in relation to expanding and improving health care for the elderly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many eyes turned to these individuals, identified as a risk group for the disease. Even so, there is little space in our society to discuss the best way to assist this population, taking into account what the aging subjects themselves think. In this sense, the objective of this study was to investigate the meanings that the aging process has for those who age, as well as to analyze the way in which art can influence the construction of these meanings in the pandemic context. For this, narrative research was used to collect detailed life stories of two elderly participants who practiced some type of artistic activity. The treatment of the data was made from the analysis of the speech, allied to the psychoanalytic method. Based on the readings of the full transcripts of the interviews, it was possible to elaborate thematic categorizations, including the categories: a) old age; b) the COVID-19 pandemic and c) art. The importance of artistic activity as a form of expression and leisure in the lives of the elderly was confirmed, especially during the pandemic moment.