2015; Volume 16, No 6, June
Featured article
Healing Dreamscapes: A memory artist at First Moscow Hospice
Nancy Gershman (right) discusseswith a patient what she
will create for her and her family
Nancy Gershman is a memory artist at VNSNY Haven Hospice in New York City, U.S. Here, Nancy explains how she came to take up an artist-in-residency at First Moscow Hospice in Russia to demonstrate prescriptive photomontage (a process of creating a new memory that overwrites a more distressing one, culminating in a digitally-modified photograph).
As a personal historian and digital artist, I work with hospice patients and their families at a 25-bed Specialty Care Unit to reveal a singular experience or event that has made the patient feel most alive. From this I create a picture of this ‘Preferred Story’ (called a ‘Healing Dreamscape’) that then becomes a lasting and supportive presence in the wake of loss.
In February of 2015, I traveled to Russia to deliver an in-service talk on my specialty – prescriptive photomontage – in Russian, to the 23 nurses and senior medical staff of First Moscow Hospice. Little did I know that VERA Hospice Charity Fund (currently Russia’s only charity fund that supports hospice patients and personnel) would become open to a two-month artist-in-residency at their 30-bed inpatient unit. I worked in two capacities: as a memory artist with patients, and also as a trainer working with three volunteers who wanted to learn both the bedside manner and the Photoshop skills of a memory artist.
The first patient was Irina S, a psychologist passionate about Paris and dancing. She asked for a portrait of herself on the top of the Eiffel Tower with a French actor who could dance. Knowing her body was irrevocably disfigured by cancer and medIcations, Irina wanted a portrait that conveyed an important message to her family: that this vibrant, beautiful person lives inside of me …
To read more about Nancy’s residency and the stories of the patients with whom she worked,
Links