Perseverance
Exhibition Dates: October 15 - December 31
Artist Reception: October 15 from 6-8p
Artist’s Statement:
#ThisIsMBC has been developed through a collaborative partnership between Beth Fairchild (#Cancerland) and Eisai Inc. to create a platform focused on changing the conversation about breast cancer through the honest voices of real individuals living with this disease every day. In its fourth year, the project has become a place for those living with metastatic breast cancer, their families, friends, and colleagues to share their individual experiences and address breast cancer’s often ignored realities. We are committed to allowing patients to tell their stories and helping them leave a lasting legacy long after they are gone.
This year’s project, #ThisIsMBC Perseverance, attempts to chronicle the realities of 12 individuals living with a terminal disease while also encompassing the joyous moments with friends and families that are precious and help them persevere. Photographed in their environments doing what they love with those that they hold most dear, each participant’s personality and strength was captured as well as the individual challenges they face daily. In this collection, you can see the stark contrast between the highlights and the difficulties of living with MBC represented by the color and black & white photographs. But the project spotlights the fact that the participants aren’t victims. Instead, they choose to live their lives fully and completely while accepting the highs and lows of breast cancer, which afflicts 1-in-8 women every year and kills 116 Americans every day.
Justin Nixon
Photography is simply using light to produce an image. Sometimes it’s to sell a product. Or capture a moment. And sometimes it’s to tell a story. Justin Nixon is a triad photographer who uses his love of creative lighting to tell the stories of those he photographs. Sometimes it’s the story of love in his wedding business. Sometimes it’s the story of empowerment in beauty photography. Other times it’s the story of life when he captures families in their happiest moments. But for the past three years, he has felt blessed to try to tell the stories of those living with a stage IV cancer diagnosis with the #ThisIsMBC campaign with the Elements, Beneath the Breast, and now Perseverance campaigns.
He lives in Burlington, NC with his wife and three children. He can be found here in the Mill or online at www.nixonstudios.com and @the_nixons on Instagram.
Beth Fairchild
Beth Fairchild is an artist, activist, and yogi who is living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Beth’s mBC diagnosis in 2014 came as a surprise, as she had never experienced a palpable lump in her breast and had undergone a mammogram one week prior with negative results. Following her de novo diagnosis, Beth was surprised to learn that the MBC community was particularly underrepresented and that mBC research was underfunded. She started a virtual protest that turned into a social media movement to raise awareness for MBC using the hashtag #DontIgnoreStageIV, which propelled her into the world of advocacy and activism, raising awareness for mBC and raising over 10 million dollars for MBC research. She currently works as the Director of #Cancerland.
