Extinction: Breast Loss - 2003

Extinction: Breast Loss • 2003

My intention is to give voice to a cultural issue of our time. Breast cancer is tragically one of the leading causes of death for women, the living experience of loosing a breast or both is devastating. Although there is a great deal of information and educational awareness with respect to this subject, the lack of imagery regarding the outcome of breast loss fails us in comprehending this actuality.

Honouring the lives and experience of women through images, I desire to participate in disposing of myths and imagining of the marketed breasts. Imagery projected by mainstream media, serve to us a menu of the most suitable breast - being of a certain size, shape, colour and form.

The questions that interest me are; what will the world look like with no breasts? What is it we will be missing as we enter the world and desire to suckle? How will company's and marketing minds market and sell products without breasts? Thirteen sculptured torso's, women of all ages and forms, cast with diverse materials reflecting authenticity: fabric, paper, lace, gauze, flannel, t-towels, clay, lichen and leaves. Suspended and wall mounted throughout the gallery space, randomly displayed, directly linked to the unknowing of this significant diagnosis that strikes women randomly. The use of natural materials connects one with a perspective of the body as a landscape, a landscape which is dramatically changing.

Women who contributed to this body of work expressed the following; that no images were available as they went through the process of treatment and surgery. Unanimously they suggested that imagery is helpful in coping with grief, loss and healing. Those who had not experienced breast loss responded to this imagery as important for their own understanding, fears and of what may come.

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