A Cancer Landscape was a collaborative exhibition, led by Sussex Community NHS Trust, presenting emotional cancer images that depict the paintings of artist Michele Angelo Petrone alongside physical, bio medical, diagnostic images from the Wellcome Medical Photographic Library.

Also featured within the exhibition were the personal artworks of people affected by cancer, created during a series of workshops held at ONCA in 2014.

“My journey has two intertwined threads – elements which mirror each other as exactly as the two chains of the double helix. One is the medical history. The physical injury, the illness, the happening, the happened, the inevitable, the unavoidable.

The parallel thread is my emotional response. The disbelief, the grief, the doubt, the flung out, the anger, the banter, the bargaining, the accepting, the clenching of teeth, the pain, the no gain. Why me? Why me now? I’m living, I’m dying. I want to live to escape it, I want to die to escape it. I’m trapped and that’s that.”

– Michele Angelo Petrone (Author and artist of The Emotional Cancer Journey)

This ground breaking exhibition explores cancer as both a physical reality and an emotional journey. Full colour prints of actual cancer cells are exhibited alongside vivid artistic representations of emotional responses. You are invited to come to the exhibition where you will have an opportunity to contribute to this living landscape as it transforms the gallery.

Margaret Felton, Health Promotions Specialist – Sussex Community NHS Trust commented:

“Cancer is a major part of all our lives, making it visible, talking about it and expressing our individual experience of cancer helps us deal with it in all its forms. We want everyone to be part of this journey.”

Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images said:

“Imagery is fundamental to informing and shaping our understanding of the world around us, whether that is an up close scan of a cancerous cell, or an artwork telling the story of someone affected by it.”

In advance of the exhibition there will be a series of free art workshops for people affected by cancer facilitated by experienced art therapists. To download a leaflet containing details of the workshops please click here.

Artworks created in the workshops will be on display in the exhibition, adding people’s own cancer landscape contributions to the existing images. In addition people visiting the exhibition will also be encouraged to create their own cancer landscape to add to the works making it a living exhibition, evolving over two weeks from 16th to 28th February 2015.

Richard Longrigg, Macmillan Involvement Coordinator from Macmillan Cancer Support, partners in the A Cancer Landscape project commented:

“Macmillan Cancer Support is proud to be a partner of A Cancer Landscape and welcomes such a creative and inclusive approach to supporting people affected by cancer.

The art workshops will provide an expressive way for people to explore and reflect on their cancer journey, in an encouraging environment with the help of experienced professional facilitators. This is a new and different approach to supporting people affected by cancer – and the exhibition will be a rare opportunity for everybody to see how cancer affects peoples’ lives in so many ways, presented through art.”