MALLORY  SHOTWELL

Each object represents a unique response, capturing a participant's lived reality and emotional state.

 

Examples from Participants Include:

• Thick Fog: An enveloping cloud that obscures direction and clarity, representing the confusion and disorientation of living with cancer.

• Black Hole: An all-consuming void, pulling everything into its gravity, symbolizing the overwhelming and isolating nature of a diagnosis.

• Broken Compass: A tool that should provide guidance but spins erratically, symbolizing the search for stability and direction amidst chaos.

• Grenade with a Pulled Pin: A frozen moment of tension, representing the volatility and unpredictability of living with cancer.

• Frozen Wave: A surge of energy and movement, suddenly stopped in time, symbolizing the suspension of life and the emotional intensity of facing a diagnosis.

• Matchbook: A small, seemingly insignificant object with the potential to ignite something larger, representing the fragility and explosiveness of living with cancer.

• Knife’s Edge: A sharp, narrow balance point that demands caution and precision, symbolizing the fragility of navigating treatment and the fine line between fear and hope.

• Cracked Mirror: A fractured reflection of the self, symbolizing the altered sense of identity and physicality experienced during and after cancer.

• Forest: A dense, overwhelming expanse with no clear path forward, representing the feeling of being lost while searching for clarity and resolution.

• Heavy Shadow: A looming, inescapable presence, representing the constant weight of fear, grief, or uncertainty.

The resulting photographs range in style and scale. Some are captured at a macro level, abstracting the object until it becomes unrecognizable—transforming it into a surreal and fragmented landscape. Others maintain their representational form, framed to evoke the emotional weight of the metaphor. For example, a weathered door is photographed with its textures emphasized, conveying endurance and strength, while a foggy mirror is staged to obscure the figure, amplifying the loss of clarity and self-identity. The composition, lighting, and angles of each image are intentionally crafted to reflect the nuances of the participants' experiences.

 

Presented as a wall installation, the photographs are displayed as individual works, each accompanied by a short description of the metaphor it represents. The pairing of text and image invites viewers to engage with the duality of the visual and the conceptual, drawing connections between the abstract and the personal. The arrangement of the photographs on the wall creates a collective visual narrative, with each object contributing a distinct perspective on the cancer experience.

 

The series invites the audience to confront the ways objects carry emotional and symbolic weight, transforming mundane or familiar items into vessels of meaning. By externalizing cancer through this process, 'If Cancer Was an Object' challenges traditional representations of illness, focusing instead on the mental and emotional processes that shape how we understand it. The work asks viewers to reflect not only on the stories of others but also on their own capacity to engage with metaphor as a way to process, communicate, and connect.

 

Through its conceptual and visual frameworks, 'If Cancer Was an Object' creates a shared language of metaphor, bridging the intimate and the universal, the personal and the collective. It honors the participants’ reflections while inviting viewers into an active dialogue, transforming their perception of cancer as both a physical and emotional landscape.