Newhouse School faculty member Tula Goenka is seeking participants for her project “Look Now: Facing Breast Cancer.”
Tula Goenka
The project focuses on breast cancer survivors through a series of clothed and unclothed portraits and an accompanying documentary with the goal of breaking down the barrier between survivors’ public personas and their private struggles with the disease.
Goenka, herself a survivor, was the first person photographed for the project when it was launched in 2010. She is now relaunching it as a photo exhibition, interactive documentary and website. The multimedia version of the project will focus on survivors’ personal stories and will be enhanced with responsive text, statistics and graphics. Cindy Bell, who is also a breast cancer survivor, will be the photographer for the project.
Goenka hopes to address the human rights aspect of access to health care and how differences in income, race, ethnicity and geographic location can impact diagnosis, treatment and survival. She is hoping for broad participation in the project, and is making a special effort to include inner-city residents on the South and Near Westsides, New Americans on the North Side, people from rural Onondaga County and indigenous Native American populations, among others.
Goenka is also working with Syracuse Stage Associate Artistic Director Kyle Bass, who is also an adjunct in playwriting in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, to stage an original spoken word performance titled “Tit Bits.” It will include the stories of various individuals who have been touched by breast cancer: patient, survivor, surviving family member, friend, caregiver, medical practitioner and/or researcher.
Goenka is the Newhouse Endowed Chair of Public Communications.
For more information or to participate, visit the “Look Now” website at http://looknowproject.org. Goenka may be reached at 315.443.3376 or tgoenka@syr.edu.
