Photovoice Exhibit The Young Adult Cancer Survivor Photovoice Exhibit

The young adult cancer survivor photovoice exhibit is the highlight of the Through the Lens (TTL) national campaign. The artworks presented here were generously and passionately shared by young adult artists who participated in the TTL intervention.

In the images and narratives, you will find stories that represent their experiences during treatment and recovery. Images reveal facets of their life with cancer, including coping strategies, identity reconciliation, meaning-making, uncertainty, hope, social support, and humor. The Young Adult Advisory Board and the research team collaborated to develop the three aims for this exhibit. For more information about our upcoming in-person events, please visit the Travel Exhibit.

• Aim 1: To evoke empathetic awareness of the impact of young adult cancer on the psychosocial well-being and achievement of development milestones.
• Aim 2: To amplify the wisdom of young adult cancer survivors through their portraits of the integration of self-identities and the restoration of life’s purpose and hope.
• Aim 3: To help young cancer survivors cope with the complexities of the future due to multifaceted uncertainty and never-ending fear by portraying the systemic challenges and opportunities they may face.

This self-portrait captures the emotional and physical weight of starting chemotherapy treatments while already living with chronic illness. Surrounded by bottles, labels, and prescriptions on her bedside table, she sits overwhelmed by the flood of new medications and the uncertainty they bring. The image reflects the isolating, relentless routine of medical management and the constant search for relief that never fully arrives. It speaks to the invisibility of suffering, the exhaustion of self-advocacy, and the erosion of identity that illness often demands.

This self-portrait was taken during an infusion treatment. The image captures the quiet duality of existing in both a medical space and a complex inner world. The mirror becomes more than a reflection — it’s a portal to the version of herself who endures silently, holds it all together, and watches her appearance shift for survival. It’s a meditation on presence, identity, and on what it means to see yourself not just as a patient, but as a person still trying to recognize who you are becoming.

I hope to keep on performing, teaching, and taking auditions. Since my cancer diagnosis, I have started to think more about what I’m looking forward to in life. I am hoping for a fulfilling life post-cancer treatment.

Living with cancer is like walking through life with a shadow that never lifts. Even on your best days, when you feel strong or hopeful, there’s a dark cloud trailing just behind you. It’s invisible to others, but you can always feel it. It’s in the quiet moments, the sudden exhaustion, the check-up dates that never really stop, and the small aches that spark big fears.

You’re never “done.” There’s no finish line, no moment where you can fully exhale. There might be remission, but that doesn’t mean release. It’s more like a pause in a storm you know could start again at any time. You learn to smile, to work, to laugh—but part of you is always waiting, always watching, bracing for the next scan, the next symptom, the next “what if.” And yet, you keep going. You carry the cloud, not because you chose to, but because you have to. And somehow, even in the darkness, you find ways to let in light.

Voices
Chemotherapy enhanced my hearing; it also enhanced the opinions of others.

Stay Seated
This wheelchair brings back so many memories. I didn’t want a chair, but I needed a chair.

Engaging with art during my cancer recovery gave me the opportunity to
Learn to quiet my judgmental voice
Learn to find beauty in darkness
Learn to stop letting perfection get in the way of “good enough”
& finally;
Learn that it is okay to take this time to be.

Sometimes I feel fierce, strong, bold, and brave. Sometimes I feel like blending in.

Focusing my attention inward while my loved ones continue to look out.

On bad days, I like to take a drive and sit by Lake Michigan. No matter what the weather is, it always looks beautiful and allows me time to reflect and reset.

I truly enjoyed the six weeks with the photovoice group, and I am so grateful for the experience. Each week reassured me that if I keep coming back (like this misplaced tulip), I will be safe, and I am allowed to let myself bloom.

Last (Wo)Man Standing

I am aware of the ghosts that walk with me, and I am aware of the darkness I try to carry off on my back.

Third Eye Things Doctors Can’t See: September 19, 2021

Third Eye Things Doctors Can’t See: July 14, 2025

Lost in Medication

A wall of prescription bottles, through which only one of the subject’s eyes is visible. Her life now run by meds, how easy it is to lose herself through the aftermath of cancer treatments… (self-portrait photograph)

Pearls of Wisdom

Once she fell off the map of her major cancer treatments, this survivor had to find her way through the abyss and forge her own sinuous path ahead. She found some pearls along the way as she joined YA cancer groups, explored art therapy, gained insights into herself, and new perspectives on the world around her. (paper collage, oil pastel, ink, and coloured pencil)

Climbing Back from Cancer

Learning to trust my body after cancer has been a challenging lesson on acceptance – accepting long-lasting side effects from treatment and accepting physical limitations that were not there before. But along with the anger and the grief, there is also profound gratitude for the ways in which my body carries me daily. The ability to move feels like a small act of rebellion. Each breath, a small whisper into the universe reaffirming, “I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.”

Reimaging Life

From a young age, books have always been my safe place. Reading felt like a superpower that allowed me to learn, create, and dream. During treatment, I was reminded of just how magical it is to live in imagined worlds when your own feels like it’s crumbling. And in the aftermath of treatment, when I was no longer guided by the roadmap laid out by my medical team, I again turned to books.

This time, searching for answers on what it means to live a meaningful life. It would take many slow months for me to realize that what I was searching for could not be found in the pages of a book, but only through living. Only through living could I begin to start moving forward.

Shutter

At first, the camera was a means of documentation and artistic expression. Zoom, crop, angle, filter, subject, all tools utilized to tell a story unfolding in real-time. An IV became a tool of transport and connection, a literal lifeline. A view out of an exam room to the city outside became a commentary on the landscape of a body, artistically presented, engulfed in fog.

After long, the decision to render an image was to pause an ever-shifting and leaping timeline. From treatment to treatment to emergency room visit, the photos were taken to freeze time.

Maybe once permanently captured, she could study the photo as an anthropologist might. “This was the day it all turned around,” she might remember, years from now.

Buried down deep in her bones was a third, more vulnerable, pulsing reason:

to prove that this was indeed happening.

That it was real.

Shoreline

The first shows my parents on the shoreline, my dad stopping for a seashell, my mom walking toward him. In the second, the scene is unchanged except for their absence. Both having passed from cancer, first my dad and then my mom. A fate laid out in front of me, one of which I hope not to succumb to myself.

Quiet Cove

This quiet cove, hidden among resorts and man-made pools, at first a discovery, a refuge, then a place where ghosts are memories and where absence speaks as loudly as presence.

Thank you for your participation in today’s photovoice exhibit. We greatly appreciate your time and interest in learning more about the artists’ experience. We would love to gather your thoughts on the exhibit and any feedback that you would like to share. If you would like to share your thoughts to add to the website as viewer feedback, please share them in this survey.