NEWS - Exhibitions & Performances

"every.single.one: art, cancer & transformation"

Solo Exhibition, June 2 - July 31, 2023

Joan Hisaoka Gallery at The Smith Center for Healing & the Arts

1632 U Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009

Opening reception on June 2nd from 5-8 pm. An Artist Talk will also be held on June 2nd at 6:30 pm.

In summer 2017, after artist Cherie Sampson posted images on social media of a photographic series of her body sited in a natural environment while undergoing cancer treatment, a friend and ovarian cancer survivor commented, “Every. Single. One. Of us who has been with this disease is validated, loved and to a certain extent, freed by this image.”  

“every.single.one” became the title for a body of creative works developed since 2017 by Sampson that document and depict personal, familial and community experiences with hereditary breast cancer. Works from the project include video art and short films, soundscapes, photographs, montages and a live performance. Many of these video and audio works will be exhibited in the Joan Hisaoka Gallery exhibition at the Smith Center for Healing & the Arts.

The Smith Center for Healing & the Arts, located in NW D.C., is a non-profit organization whose mission is “to develop and promote healing practices that explore physical, emotional, and mental wellness and lead to life-affirming changes [specializing] in serving people with cancer and utilizing the arts in healing.”  The Joan Hisaoka Gallery, an integral part of the organization, is dedicated to exhibiting art that explores the connection between creativity and the healing process.

https://smithcenter.org/

https://www.joanhisaokagallery.org/upcoming-exhibition-1

Works-in-process & Previous Exhibitions :

"every.single.one"  

(A new performance by Cherie Sampson)

“every.single.one” is a new performance/play by intermedia artist, Cherie Sampson, that depicts personal, familial and community narratives with hereditary cancer while exploring topics of genetics, integrative oncology, and healing from a patient’s perspective of modern medicine. Once in full production, the performance will be set onstage in a cinematic space incorporating video, soundscapes and imagery collected by Sampson in a documentary fashion while undergoing her own treatment for breast cancer in 2017-18.  The media environment will be integrated with other means of storytelling, including spoken word and expressive movement and dance.  Stories of other hereditary cancer survivors and “previvors,” as shared with the artist in a series of interviews, are interwoven throughout the play, portraying the varied experiences of BRCA genetic mutation carriers.  The project draws from ethnographic research, lived experience, field notes, interviews, and data to create a dramatic and varied interpretation. It provided Sampson a means to process the life-altering ordeal in which to, in the words of feminist poet Audre Lorde, “examine it, put it into perspective, share it and make use of it.” 

2023 Performances of "every.single.one":

~ A theatrical workshop solo performance of “every.single.one” by Cherie Sampson will take place Saturday, August 12, 2023, 7:30 PM at the Goldman Theater, Edlavitch Jewish Community Center.  1529 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington DC 20036.

~ The piece will also be performed at the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) at the Banff Center for Arts & Creativity in Banff, Canada on September 14th, 2023. (Conference dates: Sept. 14-16) https://integrativeonc.org/

Previous Theatrical Readings & Performances:

"every.single.one,"  Full-length play. Presented at the Mizzou New Play Series, University of Missouri Theater (on Zoom), February 10, 2022. (Link to Scene 8 from the reading, "It's Not Your Fault.")

https://vimeo.com/687359748/05b8475a88

(Link to Scene 14, "Pill Bags & a Wig")

https://vimeo.com/687449184/448273f109

"every.single.one,"  Scenes 1-3.Presented live at the 17th Annual "Life & Literature" Series, University of Missouri Theater, Oct. 2019:

https://vimeo.com/368990211/68b960da89

More info about "every.single.one:"

http://cheriesampson.net/every.single.one-(work-in-process)-2019-2021).html

"The Quality of Being Fleeting"

CURRENTS New Media Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2-Person Exhibition Cherie Sampson & Gillian Brown, Summer 2022

 The work of video artists Gillian Brown & Cherie Sampson shares glimpses of the in-between: subtle junctions between the substantial and the fleeting, form and dissolution, stillness and movement. The artists in their individual practices each explore transience and the suspension of duality, expressed through related visual language, approaches to sound, as well as shared philosophical underpinnings. Motifs referring to nature, the body and the cosmos, often depicted with slow dissolves and superimpositions, allude to transformations in time, scale, and place.  Shifting perception and the evanescence of existence itself is intrinsic to both artists’ work. 

https://currentsnewmedia.org/the-quality-of-being-fleeting/

"Substance of Venom"

New single-channel and video installation work, 2022

(Currently exhibiting at Currents 826 New Media Gallery, Santa Fe; May 27-Sept. 12. 2022)

The home gardens, prairies, orchard, woodlands where Cherie Sampson lives set the mise-en-scène for a series of self-administered honeybee “stinging rituals” over a period of several months in 2021. A team of Australian researchers recently discovered that the active substance in honeybee venom, melittin, has demonstrated a capacity to induce cell death in two types of aggressive breast cancers: triple-negative and HER2.  As a survivor of TNBC, Sampson engaged this symbolic act, calling attention to the need for more natural or other forms of cancer therapy that may one day offer alternatives to toxic treatments. Footage of the foraging patterns of honeybees and other native pollinators of the Midwest that illustrate the diverse life in healthy ecosystems are juxtaposed with images of the stinging rites. In the installation, the video is projected onto silk scrims that hang in a sculptural space constructed of applewood from the organic orchard operated by Sampson’s husband, Dan Kelly.

 https://ecoartspace.org/Blog/12831962