The Cancer Quilts is a new and forthcoming body of work that visualizes my breast cancer journey. The series is of course an act of personal processing, but beyond any attempts at sense-making for myself, I am interested in creating a visual record of my experience with the disease in order to call attention to the prevalence of breast cancer diagnoses amongst Black women, the increasing rate of diagnosis amongst young Black women, the fact that Black women needlessly die from breast cancer at higher rates than any other demographic group, the long term impacts of cancer on a body, family, and community, as well as the pink-ribbon industrial complex and medical surveillance machine. I hope that by attending to and documenting my personal experience through this series, space will also be held or open up for attention to collectivities—collective experiences, glory, and grief.
Citations:
Citations:
- Hickmon, Gabrielle Ione. “The Beginning of This After,” August 7, 2024. https://www.notesfromatripto.com/p/the-beginning-of-this-after-cancer-diagnosis.
- Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. Penguin Modern Classics. Penguin Classics, 2020.
- Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, Second Edition. University of Minnesota Press, 2002. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816669851.001.0001.
- Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. “Dares to Stares: Disabled Women Performance Artists & the Dynamics of Staring.” In Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance. University of Michigan Press, 2005. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/s4655h345.
