January Issue 2000
Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry at Light Factory in Charlotte, NC
Hospice for the Carolinas presents Hospice:
A Photographic Inquiry at The Light Factory in Charlotte,
NC, Jan. 8 through Mar. 19. Commissioned by Washington's Corcoran
Gallery of Art and the National Hospice Foundation, the traveling
exhibition features the work of five nationally-acclaimed photographers
as they explore the physical, emotional, and spiritual world of
the hospice movement.
Sally Mann
The photographers include: Jim Goldberg, from San Francisco, CA, photographed his father who died in hospice care in Florida; Nan Goldin, from New York City, documented patients at home and at Cabrini Hospice; Sally Mann explored the hospice experience in Lexington, VA, from the point of view of patients; Jack Radcliffe, from Baltimore, MD, documented an AIDS hospice in York, PA; Kathy Vargas created shrine-like works from personal memories of patients and their families in San Antonio, TX.
The exhibit is being sponsored by Hospice for the Carolinas joined by affiliated hospices in both states. Using an art show like this might seem an unusual way to educate the public about end-of-life issues. However, talented artists can often humanize complex issues. This exhibition raises awareness of hospice, providing answers to a growing concern about how to care for the dying. That's especially needed, when health care is in turmoil, chronic diseases are on the upswing, and our population is aging.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art collaborated with The National Hospice Foundation (NHF) to organize Hospice. a Photographic Inquiry an exhibition of descriptive visual art projects about the hospice movement in the United States. Five internationally recognized photographers were commissioned to create new work about the emotional and collaborative experience of living and working in hospices in different regions of the country. These artists researched and created photographic projects about the hospice experience by immersing themselves in the world of the people who know it best: patients, families, and health care providers. The aim of their projects was to investigate the processes, concepts, and emotions of the hospice movement in order to create broad public understanding of its benefits and goals. It was also to create and exhibit significant new art about an important social issue, The exhibition, sponsored in part by a major grant from Warner Lambert Companies, opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in Mar. 1996 and it will tour throughout the US from July 1996 through 1999. The Charlotte exhibit is the last showing in the Southeastern United States.
In an era when humane and affordable health care, mental health concerns, public education, and family unity are difficult problems to resolve at a national level, the hospice movement wisely and sympathetically brings people together in a nurturing environment. Hospice is a concept of health care which provides for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of terminally ill patients and their families. Its goal is to intelligently and compassionately manage the pain and emotional loss of terminal illness.
Hospices primarily care for patients in their homes. Although cancer patients constitute the majority of people in a typical hospice program, hospices also care for people with AIDS, Alzheimer's and other diseases. In the last decade, hospice care has grown from a little-known alternative to a major movement in health care that serves over 200,000 people each year. In 1974 there was one functional hospice program in the United States. Today there are over 2,100 programs. For many observers, the widening acceptance of the hospice movement represents an enlightened development in the complex history of medical care. This project will investigate the growing relevance of a viable approach that is fast becoming the preferred standard of care for people facing death.
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