2024 Life Interrupted & Life Sentence Exhibition
The series Life Interrupted and Life Sentence were both used in a two part online solo exhibition by the Peter MacCallum. The exhibition documents an exhibition with brain cancer and its aftermath through a photographic lens.
The link to the exhibition is here: https://sites.google.com/view/lifeinterrupted/life-interrupted/life-sentence
2023 Life Interupted
This work is being used by the psychology team from the Children’s Cancer Centre to better understand the aftereffects children living with Chronic Illness suffer from. “His images have helped our team gain momentum in looking for better outcomes for young people with a chronic illness.”
1. Beneath Kaitlyn’s life was ripped apart when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 13. (This image shows the two sides of her - with her wig you wouldn’t know she ever had cancer and suffers the side effects of treatment)
2. Crushed Before diagnosis Kaitlyn was very athletic, she danced and was a star netball player. This is one of her trophies from that time, cancer crushed her dreams.
3. Lost A permanent loss from the treatment that saved her life, fertility, represented by the orchard.
4. Fracture Pain is a daily experience for Kaitlyn, it varies in intensity, represented by shards of glass.
5. Deluge Medications daily, and types and doses have increased since diagnosis, an attempt to keep her functioning.
6. Engulf Anxiety is part of her life, what saved her has left her with so many different life impacting side effects. Water both life giving and destructive, changing forms just as her levels of anxiety change.
7. Submerge Fatigue is another part of her life that she deals with daily. Again water in different states, frozen and liquid to represent the changing levels and impacts of fatigue.
8. Reminisce Kaitlyns mother kept her hair from just before treatment began and a wig was made recently with it. In this image she is reminded of a time before cancer, the ice represents a moment frozen in time.
9. Obscure Kaitlyn suffers from balance and dizziness. The water represent the impacts they might seem little but it means she can’t drive, she needs assistance with public transport. From the outside it doesn’t look like a big deal, she looks fine, the impacts are not physically visible. That makes it hard for others to understand and recognise she needs help.
10. Joy Art and creativity brings Kaitlyn joy. Yellow represents Joy, creativity and also childhood cancer.
2021 Life Sentence
This series was the first series I completed as a photographer, I was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, a grade 4 aggressive brain cancer, in 2013, I was 13, and in my first year of high school. Treatment included surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. I will be monitored for the rest of my life.
This work is being used by the psychology team from the Children’s Cancer Centre to better understand the aftereffects children living with Chronic Illness suffer from. “His images have helped our team gain momentum in looking for better outcomes for young people with a chronic illness.”
1.Drift Multiple anaesthetics for surgeries, lumbar punctures and other medical procedures.
2. Stitched Brain surgery, I had just turned 13 and life as I knew it felt like it had been ripped apart.
3.Malignant It was the size of a golfball.
4. Scorched Whole brain and spine radiation, strapped down to the radiation table for six weeks.
5.Fall Until the leaves fall, you can still tell yourself it is summer.
6.Dripped Three different types of chemotherapy, Cyclophosphamide, Vincristine, Cisplatin, for four months.
7. Sick A constant companion… vomiting was one of my initial symptoms, and it continued throughout treatment and beyond.
8. Hope Some scars are visible and some are not.
9.Erode If my skull was glass you would see the damage brain cancer has done to me.
10. Medicate. Late effects from the treatment that saved my life are gradually developing requiring daily medication.
11.Courage Each bead represents a different treatment, procedure or event. These help to share the story of my experiences through treatment.