Several works of art
ranging from an eighteenth-century painting to a twenty-first
century Polaroid portrait were
highlighted at the Davis Museum during October 2004 to raise
awareness of breast cancer. This disease most frequently
targets women.
Its treatment, though potentially life-saving, can profoundly
alter those parts of the body culturally associated with
feminine beauty. Surgery cuts into or removes a woman’s
breast, and chemotherapy may cause partial or complete hair
loss and have other consequences to the body. As a result,
breast cancer threatens not only a woman’s life, but
also her sense of identity as shaped through body image.
The female body has long been a central subject for art
in the Western tradition, so images related to breast cancer
are especially charged. The works featured this month in
the museum are marked by a pink ribbon on each label. They
demonstrate how
women make, commission, or donate art that explores bodies
altered by breast cancer. Beyond documenting the physical
changes brought on by the disease, these works of art allow
women to give thanks for surviving treatment, and to visually
reframe their experiences with poignancy and even humor.
This project was part of a campus-wide series of events
to
mark
Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Events at the Davis Museum
and Cultural Center
Monday, October 4, 2004, 4:00-5:00pm
Severance Green
Hurricane Voices: Janet Colantuono
A ceremony to kick-off Breast Cancer Awareness Month by
integrating the story of how one woman’s voice can
make a difference. This will be an interactive event with
the group gathered and T-shirts will be distributed by
Hurricane Voices.
Wednesday, October 6, 2004, 1:00-2:00pm
Jewett Auditorium
Keynote Lecture: Dr. Susan Love
Dr. Love, author not only of Dr. Susan Love’s
Breast Book, but also of the foreword to Hollis
Sigler’s
Breast Cancer Journal, will share her medical expertise
and her experience as a leader of the breast cancer advocacy
movement in this lecture for the general public. Three
works by Sigler from the Davis collections will be on view
at the Davis Museum this month.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004, 7:00-9:00pm
Collins Cinema
No Hair Day/Hair Stories: A conversation with photographers
Elsa Dorfman and Karin Stack along with Debbie Dorsey
and Libby Levinson (two of Dorfman’s portrait subjects)
A screening of the video, No Hair Day, followed
by a conversation and book signings with Elsa Dorfman (No
Hair Day) and Karin
Stack (Hair Stories). Highlights include photographs
to be loaned by Dorfman from her series of portraits of
three
women undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and by Stack
from her series of self-portraits during her own treatment
for that disease. Professor Michele Respaut will moderate.
The video, No Hair Day, includes material that may be difficult
for younger viewers.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004, 4:00-6:00pm
Margaret C. Ferguson Greenhouses seminar room
The Healing Garden: A lecture by Betsy Tyson
A short video presentation and discussion with Betsy Tyson
about the Healing Garden in Harvard, MA. A community in
a tranquil garden setting that provides support and complimentary
therapies without financial barriers to those touched by
breast cancer. After the talk, there will be an opportunity
for those in attendance to tour the greenhouses and ask
questions.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004, 12:30-1:00pm
Sherrill Exhibition (Contemporary Gallery)
Lunchtime Gallery
Talk
Elaine Mehalakes, Nancy Gray Sherrill Curatorial Fellow,
gives a brief lunchtime talk about Hollis Sigler’s
Where Daughters Fear Becoming Their Mothers.
Ongoing in the gallery
The Peres Maldonado Ex-voto
Touchscreen
Three members of the Wellesley faculty write on a newly-acquired
Mexican ex-voto painting, with which a seventeenth-century
woman, Josefa Peres Maldonado, gives thanks for surviving
the
excision of six tumors from her breast. Contributing on
this second installment of the Writing Project at the Davis
are Anastasia Karakasidou, Anthropology; Sharon Elkins,
Religion; and Jay Oles, Art . Their
responses to the painting, and other information about
the conservation it underwent and its intended function
will be presented in a touchscreen kiosk in
the gallery.
Related Open Classes at the Davis Museum
Monday, October 18, 2004 at 2:50pm
Museum Lobby
Anthropology 251: Cultures of Cancer
Professor Anastasia Karakasidou and her students discuss
the works highlighted for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
as part of the material culture of cancer.
Friday, October 22, 2004 at 11:15am |
Museum Lobby
Parents’ Weekend
Gallery Talk with the Museum Director
David Mickenberg, Ruth Gordon Shapiro '37 Director of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, will discuss a recently
acquired
eighteenth-century Mexican painting that shows a woman
undergoing surgery for breast cancer, and the newly developed
information touchscreen about it in the museum gallery.
This Gallery Talk is part of a series of events to mark
Breast Cancer Awareness Month on the Wellesley campus.
• For more information on these events please visit
the following sites:
http://www.hurricanevoices.org
http://www.susanlovemd.com
http://www.elsa.photo.net
http://www.karinstack.com
http://www.healinggarden.net
•
Support of Wellesley students participating in “Making
Strides against Breast Cancer.” A walk on Sunday
October 17… http://www.cancer.org/stridesonline
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