Take Care
Sep 15, 2017–Jan 13, 2018
In partnership with Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force
Indira Allegra, Laura Berger, Joan Giroux, The Think Tank That Has Yet to be Named
Take Care aims to shed light on systemic barriers to quality healthcare through the lens of breast cancer. This group exhibition explores themes of care and community, vulnerability and support by way of painting, photography, immersive sound, and text. An array of interactive programming, including screenings, panel discussions, and more, will take place over the course of the exhibition.
Curator’s Note
Illness tests us. It tests our bodies, our bonds, and our beliefs, along with what we know. In the presence of illness, daily routines are redefined alongside thresholds of pain, while the basic meanings of words become unmoored. Waiting gets its own room, and visiting its own hours. The term patient no longer occupies the realm of generous calm by default. And a caregiver takes care, despite the fact that give and take usually occupy decidedly opposite sides of the equation. When contemplating our mortality, there’s comfort to be found in Susan Sontag’s description of the dual citizen who is in possession of a passport for both the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick, for it points to a fundamental common ground shared by all.
— Kasia Houlihan
Public Programs
Exhibition Dates
Sep 15, 2017–Jan 13, 2018
Opening Reception
Sep 15, 2017, 5–8PM
Performance
Oct 5, 6–7PM
Caring shifts, shifting cares. Through the performance, Joan Giroux and Lisa Kaftori explore how touch, affection, and nurturance—or their absence—can produce profound influences on one’s life. The artists look closely at how the role of caregiver shifts over the course of a lifetime and as it is passed from one generation to the next. Giroux and Kaftori seek to create a gathering space made intimate with modest gestures, spoken word, and observed symbols of caregiving, inviting the possibility of new ways of thinking about the desire and need to give and receive care.
Screening
Oct 27, 6:00–8:00PM
In The Family. Kartemquin Film’s In the Family is a documentary about the unpredicatable world of predictive genetic testing. Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick chronicles her own experience of testing positive for the familial breast cancer genetic mutuation (BRCA) and the physical and emotional consequences that come with such knowledge. Following the screening, a panel of experts will discuss recent advances in breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment and how these advances reduce the risk of developing breast cancer, while they also widen health disparities for those who are uninsured and medically underserved. Panelists include: Dr. Kent Hoskins, Director, UIC’s Familial Breast Cancer Program; Dr. Patricia Robinson, Assistant Professor, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Loyola University Medical Center, Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center; Gordon Quinn, Executive Producer and Cinematographer of In the Family, Founder and Artistic Director, Kartemquin Films; moderated by Dr. Anne Marie Murphy, Executive Director, Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force.
Discussion
Dec 7, 2017, 6–7:30PM
The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills. Join us for a discussion with Dr. David Ansell, author of The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills and Board President of the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force
Press
The Chicago Tribune
The Columbia Chronicle
Partner
The Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the fight against breast cancer inequalities in Metropolitan Chicago. The Task Force engages in advocacy, direct services, and education to ensure that all women receive high quality healthcare regardless of race, location, income level, and insured status.
Take Care, installation views at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, 2017–18
Take Care
Sep 15, 2017–Jan 13, 2018
In partnership with Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force
Indira Allegra, Laura Berger, Joan Giroux, The Think Tank That Has Yet to be Named
Take Care aims to shed light on systemic barriers to quality healthcare through the lens of breast cancer. This group exhibition explores themes of care and community, vulnerability and support by way of painting, photography, immersive sound, and text. An array of interactive programming, including screenings, panel discussions, and more, will take place over the course of the exhibition.
Curator’s Note
Illness tests us. It tests our bodies, our bonds, and our beliefs, along with what we know. In the presence of illness, daily routines are redefined alongside thresholds of pain, while the basic meanings of words become unmoored. Waiting gets its own room, and visiting its own hours. The term patient no longer occupies the realm of generous calm by default. And a caregiver takes care, despite the fact that give and take usually occupy decidedly opposite sides of the equation. When contemplating our mortality, there’s comfort to be found in Susan Sontag’s description of the dual citizen who is in possession of a passport for both the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick, for it points to a fundamental common ground shared by all.
— Kasia Houlihan
Public Programs
Exhibition Dates
Sep 15, 2017–Jan 13, 2018
Opening Reception
Sep 15, 2017, 5–8PM
Performance
Oct 5, 6–7PM
Caring shifts, shifting cares. Through the performance, Joan Giroux and Lisa Kaftori explore how touch, affection, and nurturance—or their absence—can produce profound influences on one’s life. The artists look closely at how the role of caregiver shifts over the course of a lifetime and as it is passed from one generation to the next. Giroux and Kaftori seek to create a gathering space made intimate with modest gestures, spoken word, and observed symbols of caregiving, inviting the possibility of new ways of thinking about the desire and need to give and receive care.
Screening
Oct 27, 6:00–8:00PM
In The Family. Kartemquin Film’s In the Family is a documentary about the unpredicatable world of predictive genetic testing. Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick chronicles her own experience of testing positive for the familial breast cancer genetic mutuation (BRCA) and the physical and emotional consequences that come with such knowledge. Following the screening, a panel of experts will discuss recent advances in breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment and how these advances reduce the risk of developing breast cancer, while they also widen health disparities for those who are uninsured and medically underserved. Panelists include: Dr. Kent Hoskins, Director, UIC’s Familial Breast Cancer Program; Dr. Patricia Robinson, Assistant Professor, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Loyola University Medical Center, Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center; Gordon Quinn, Executive Producer and Cinematographer of In the Family, Founder and Artistic Director, Kartemquin Films; moderated by Dr. Anne Marie Murphy, Executive Director, Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force.
Discussion
Dec 7, 2017, 6–7:30PM
The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills. Join us for a discussion with Dr. David Ansell, author of The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills and Board President of the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force
Press
The Chicago Tribune
The Columbia Chronicle
Partner
The Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the fight against breast cancer inequalities in Metropolitan Chicago. The Task Force engages in advocacy, direct services, and education to ensure that all women receive high quality healthcare regardless of race, location, income level, and insured status.
Take Care, installation views at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, 2017–18