What Remains

In 2015, Sarah Basha’s father passed away from Alzheimer’s and she became a mother. That life-changing year inspired her to create What Remains, an international traveling exhibition designed to raise awareness about dementia and destigmatize the condition. Sarah curates stories and Polaroid portraits of people who have advanced Alzheimer’s, focusing, as she puts it, “not on their condition, but rather, in spite of it, who they are and what they love.” 

What Remains is in a constant state of evolution, iterating on Sarah’s initial idea. The project is now headed to Portugal, where it’s planning to take blown-up portraits of people who are willing to become “friends of dementia” out into the streets. These subjects are people who’ve promised to be more conscious of the disease and to work as ambassadors within their communities to bring attention to the cause. A digital map will be accessible via QR code and link back to a collection of entries about the people in the posters. 

As ever, Sarah’s goal is twofold—to educate people about the disease and to help families dealing with it feel less alone. Our grant will be used to pay for the posters to be printed and to help set up the tools required to build the digital map in and around Lisbon. For those of us who can’t hop on a plane to see these moving images in person, Instagram is free! Follow along @whatremains.