AT 104 years old, Millie is going blind, but, with the help of home carers, she still lives in her council flat on Roman Road, which “she knows like the back of her hand”. Her strength of character and human spirit was just one of the many stories artists Tim Sutton and Tanya Kaprielian came across during the six months they spent researching and conducting interviews with older people, carers and healthcare professionals across London for the multi-media touring exhibition, Care, organised by Age Exchange, which arrived at Vestry House Museum this week.

“It’s been quite a journey looking at views, some of which I’ve enjoyed, and some I wish I hadn’t seen,” Tim explains. “But then that’s the point, you can’t decide what to be exposed to. This is living. The surprises, the adversities, the challenges.

“I have no agenda other than the one to be true to the people who have so kindly shared their thoughts, their hopes and fears, and their memories.”

Rather than being a “documentary or history about care”, Tim explains this exhibition reflects his and Tanya’s personal response to what they have seen.

As a result, Tim has created a series of photographic portraits, five short films, a water sculpture and a sound piece consisting of an old telephone exchange which he has converted to feature 20 recordings.

“Humour and song plays a lot into people’s coping mechanisms.

“One day, at a care centre, I recorded a lady singing. Everybody loved her. It kept everyone going and just brought life into the place. Other recordings feature dialogue mostly from people receiving care. There is talk of euthanasia, people who are happy to go or be helped when the time came. They were pretty difficult subjects that people did want to talk about and address.”

Tim’s short films also touch on the issue of care in Britain compared to other cultures, a theme Tanya was concerned with.

She says: “I have a Cypriot Armenian father and an Austrian mother, so I am interested in different cultures and the way the sense of belonging is different.

“I came across a lot of isolation on this project. Carers from Jamaica had a different idea about care, saying they would never send parents into a care home, everyone would look after each other, it’s their moral duty.”

In response to the project, Tanya has created a narrative piece using thread to communicate some of the stories “that stuck for me”, and a drawing based on that journey and a small embroidered piece.

“The process of making this work has been particularly important, focusing on attention to detail and scale as a way of highlighting the fragility and ephemeral nature of age.”

Clearly moved by the whole experience, Tim tells me it has been “emotionally, physically and mentally draining”, before offering me some stark conclusions about the institutional structure of care.

“A nurse holding somebody’s hand could be seen to be doing nothing but could, in actual fact, be doing the best job she could be doing,” he suggests. “In our race to be efficient in the delivery of care we have overlooked the personal touches.”

Care runs at the Vestry House Museum until Sunday, Feburary 28. Meet the artists on Saturday, February 6, 2pm-4pm. Visit: www.walthamforest.gov.uk/vestry-house.