54
55
The visitor walks into a dark room with six
chairs in front of six screens where each of the
six women’s faces – or the back of their heads –
is shown to symbolise the hidden nature of the
illness. The artists then use sound and vision to
create the experience.
“A lot of people have found it quite powerful.
It feels very personal and direct, we use special
speaker technology that when you are sitting
watching the video it’s almost like the voice
is in your head and the video material that we
use… we made a decision to film the women
not talking… it’s like listening to someone’s
thoughts and they are just looking at you,” John
Wynne said.
He added that different people connected with
different stories and that some people were
almost always affected.
The women are encouraged to talk about
whatever they want to. “They tell us about the
things that matter to them in every intimate
way; we have no agenda so we let them say
what they want to say about the situations they
find themselves in. We don’t interfere,” Tim
Wainwright said.
“We tried to create a context in which they
can think about and talk about the things that
C
ast aside, ignored and overlooked, is
how many women with Advanced Breast
Cancer (ABC) feel, and in wanting people to
understand that they are ‘not their cancer’, a
new installation opened on 7 November 2014
with real-life stories of how the disease has
impacted on them and their families.
The
I am not the cancer
installation was
organised by Novartis Pharma Services Inc
Oncology in cooperation with Europa Donna
Cyprus and was part of the European wide
Here&Now
campaign.
The campaign was launched in Brussels in
June 2013 where the breast cancer community
gathered to discuss and debate how support
and care for women living with advanced
breast cancer could be improved. It coincided
with the new findings from a European survey
commissioned by Novartis Oncology. The
survey, conducted in nine European countries,
aimed to draw a wider picture of the disease and
revealed amongst others aspects, poor public
understanding of advanced breast cancer.
The audiovisual installation is the work of
two acclaimed artists; photographer Tim
Wainwright and sound artist John Wynne, who
bring forth the women’s stories and introduce
the rest of the world to the psycho-social and
economic impact of the disease on the women
and their families.
It was first set up in Belgium and travelled to
six other European countries before arriving in
Cyprus.
In each country, the women whom the artists
work with are found through cancer patients’
associations and in fact there was great interest
from Cypriot women in telling their stories.
In Cyprus the artists worked with three local
women and also used stories of women from
other European counties.
I am not the cancer
By Evie Andreou
