NEWS - Exhibitions & Performances

Workshop Performance of "every.single.one" at the Banff Center for Arts & Creativity, Banff, Canada

For the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), Sept. 14-16, 2023.

“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. In the full production, the performance is 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 is integrated with other means of storytelling, including spoken word and expressive movement and dance. The narrative interweaves three levels of testimonial – the artist's, her sister’s, and those of hereditary cancer survivors and previvors, whose stories were conveyed to Sampson in a series of interviews - 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.” 

The piece was also performed for the Midwest Women in the Arts Symposium, Bradley University, Peoria, IL., October 19-21, 2023.

  "every.single.one" was a Finalist for the 2023 Jane Chambers Award in feminist playwriting & performance texts.

Upcoming Performances of "every.single.one:"

- Goldman Theater, Edlavitch Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C. on July 27, 2024. 1529 Sixteenth Street, NW. (Workshop performance)

- Full Prodcution, Columbia Entertainment Company (CEC) Theater Venue in Columbia, Missouri in February 6-9, 2025.

VIDEOS of "every.single.one"

17-Minute Reel of Excerpts

Story on CancerChoices website (includes links to full performance)

Current Exhibitions:

"Viral Integration"

Susan Samueli Health Sciences Building, University of California, Irvine, California Upcoming; 6-month exhibition.

41 Artists Addressing Health Issues. Curated by elin o'Hara Slavick.

Opened December 21, 2023. Exhibition will remain on view for 6 months in 2024.

Recent Exhibitions:

"every.single.one: art, cancer & transformation"   (2023)

Solo Exhibition, Joan Hisaoka Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing & the Arts, Washington, D.C.

“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 were exhibited in the Joan Hisaoka Gallery exhibition at the Smith Center for Healing & the Arts from June 2 - July 31, 2023. 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/

"The Quality of Being Fleeting"  (2022)

CURRENTS 826 New Media Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2-Person Exhibition Cherie Sampson & Gillian Brown

(Part of the CURRENTS New Media Festival, 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/

Featuring a new video-installation:

"Substance of Venom"

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