Ruth Flanagan
This research was designed to support four people (Including myself) recovering from cancer. Over four sessions, we worked alongside each other and empowered ourselves to share, tell and reframe our stories. We used clay and metaphor to reflect on our experiences, enabling recovery beyond medicine and the hospital. These workshops culminated in an exhibition and private view. I used Phenomenological and Autoethnographic methodologies.
I explored my lived experience of cancer and recovery before enabling participants to gain agency over their encounters with the disease. I believe letting participants tell their stories and create artwork is essential, as illness is a visceral embodied experience. Such experiences can only be communicated by the person who has lived through them.
