Exhibition Review: Multimedia | Brian Rope

Trust Me | Toni Hassan

Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Manuka | 24 April – 5 May 2024 (Inclusive of Anzac Day, excluding Mon April 29).

Have you ever wondered what having cancer means? I’ve always thought it would not be possible to know before actually experiencing it. Much is revealed by this moving, multi-media examination of the personal and collective geography of Kamberri/Canberra-based artist Toni Hassan's transformative experience of receiving a cancer diagnosis and treatment in 2023.

Grateful for her cancer remission, Hassan is showcasing artwork inspired by the experience. She uses textiles made from repurposed materials, photographs, video work, paintings, and found-object installations to highlight surreal, psychological, spiritual and physical aspects of her journey, plus the visual culture of medical care. She has done so to reconcile her personal experiences with taboos surrounding cancer in the context of public health. 

This social practice visual artist is a practising Christian, deep thinker, Walkley Award-winning writer and broadcaster, and an adjunct research fellow with the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. She has always been interested in ideas around living well in the spirit, body and mind and has explored the nature of reality. So, it is not surprising that she decided to view her cancer as a visitor or visitant, a physical thing offering a spiritual dimension. Reflecting on this exhibition, Hassan has written that she drew on the writings of Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality, to find inspiration for practicing defiant joy.

The show’s name reflects the fact that Hassan’s treatment over nine months was a prolonged test of trust in the professionals at Canberra Hospital, trust in known evidence or science, trust in her family to care for her. And trust in what she refers to as “the divine Ground of Being which my illness drew me closer to.”

The room sheet leads visitors clockwise around the room then into its centre. There are acrylics on board, and photographs printed on Hahnemühle rag. The photos are about the hospital setting. Entrance 2023 shows the coldness of the entrance to the Canberra Region Cancer Centre.

Entrance, 2023 - Archival pigment on Hahnemühle photo rag, 53.5 x 63.5 cm. Artist Proof, Unframed.

And there are a variety of other works, including disposable nursing pads embellished with thread, a steel bed base loaded with rocks (and a pillow), and 24 patient identification bands stitched together. The rocks effectively convey how hard it was to lie on a bed receiving chemotherapy for hours at a time, again and again.

Hassan has always been interested in ideas around living well in the spirit, body and mind and has explored the nature of reality. For her, cancer provided the bonus of seeing the body in new ways. Tender is a moving self-portrait about tenderness for what is seen and unseen. 

Tender, 2024 – Acrylic on board. 31 x 31cm

On a trolley, a stereo channel video reveals MRI images of the inside of parts of the artist’s body. The X-ray scans and MRIs provided the artist with a fresh perspective on her physiology. Below the video sits an enteral syringe and band (designed for delivering nutrients and medication directly into the gastrointestinal tract). The area around Hassan’s PEG - the gastro tube directly into her stomach developed an infection, causing prolonged and acute stabbing pain. This exhibit conveys a strong message.

There are two quite wonderful exhibits using hospital gowns – neither readily recognisable as such. Vul-ner-able, 2024 is transformed with fabric and thread, Care economy, 2024 embellished with sequins and vibrant colour. 

Care economy, 2024 (Reclaimed hospital chemo and disposable nursing gowns, and sequins) -
Photo by Caleb Thorson

On the exhibit Care Moment, 2024 Recycled Table there is house paint and pencil, ceramic bowl, mats made of disposable medical plastic tongs, and sugar-coated chocolate buttons. We read instructions which invite us to delight in one of the chocolates, using it to remember someone who cared for us and give thanks, then to write about or draw it.

A late addition to the show has a title which makes a profound statement - I’m still here. Hassan is indeed still here. In remission she knows she will have more time, more adventures, more projects. We can rejoice with her and look forward to more artworks and exhibitions from this artist.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.