Caretelling: Stories to Sustain Ourselves is a group exhibition showcasing research and creative practice focused on storytelling our relationships of care.
An interdisciplinary group exhibition curated by Aaron D. Knochel
September—December 2024
Stories are the most basic way to care for one another. By telling stories, the human experience becomes something shared and by sharing we lift each other up sustaining ourselves and our humanity. At the same time, storytelling is a fundamentally creative act that compels our imagining the life experiences of others. Creating, imagining, and sharing grow our sense of empathy.
There is a blossoming understanding of the impact of the arts on the health and wellbeing of our communities and institutions. Emerging research and creative practice investigate narrative inquiry and ethics of care as opportunities to understand the broader impact the arts have on healthcare. Whether it be in the medical humanities or advances in neuroscience and the impact of the arts (or neuroarts), there is a growing need to understand how our creativity and need to share stories may impact our care giving and receiving.
Caretelling: Stories to Sustain Ourselves is a group exhibition showcasing research and creative practice focused on storytelling our relationships of care. Contributors and events are a part of a collaboration involving Penn State’s College of Arts & Architecture, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and Graphic Mundi an imprint of the Penn State University Press. The exhibition is one part of a larger research project led by an interdisciplinary team of Penn State faculty titled “Expanding Capacities of Care: Methodological and Pedagogical Opportunities in Narrative Ethics and Creative Inquiry for Nursing Education and Professional Development.” The project has many different activity streams from developing art exhibitions to workshops engaging creative practice and resilience for healthcare and educational professionals.
Contributors
Aaron Knochel (curator & contributing artist) is a mixed methods researcher and artist with interests in transdisciplinary learning, critical social theory, and software studies. Knochel has worked in various learning spaces including schools, museums, and community centers. Current funded research pursuits include investigating generative artificial intelligence in art and design and impacts of creative inquiry within healthcare systems.
Daryl Branford is the Director of Science-Art Initiatives at The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. He incorporates 3D visualization, spatial design, sound synthesis, and live performance to bring research to life. Branford’s years of experience as a multi-instrumentalist musician and artist enable him to explore relationships within the arts and sciences.
Parisa Farjamfar is a graduate student at Penn State University, where she specializes in illustration and animation with a focus on the history and culture of Iran. Farjamfar contributes to the Huck Institute as a part-time graphic designer, where she creates visual elements such as figures and infographics to support scientific research.
Sarah Firth (she/her) is an artist, writer, cartoonist and graphic recorder based on Wurundjeri Country, Melbourne, Australia. Sarah has received a Talking Difference Fellowship from the Immigration Museum, was a finalist in the Incinerator Gallery Award for Social Change and her comics have appeared in Eisner Award-winning and Ignatz-nominated anthologies. Her debut graphic novel, Eventually Everything Connects (Graphic Mundi, 2024), was The Age’s Non-Fiction Pick of The Week, shortlisted for The Prime Minister’s Literary Award and listed as one of The Best Graphic Novels Ever by Refinery29.
Talley Fisher is the Senior Research Artist for Huck SciArt, a dual position with the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Institutes of Energy and the Environment at Penn State University. Fisher is an internationally known sculptor specializing in large-scale suspended sculptures for healthcare facilities, airports, hotels, companies, and private residences.
Ann Holt, Ph.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor of art education at Penn State. She is also an advisor and artist teacher with Arts Action Group, an international community-based collective committed to facilitating socially engaged arts initiatives with children and youth in conflict-affected environments. Her research, teaching, and writing encompass social justice issues involving archives and marginalized histories, as well as the roles of arts and culture in global development practices towards social transformation and healing.
Karen Keifer-Boyd, Ph.D., Professor of Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, co-authored several books: Teaching and Assessing Social Justice Art Education: Power, Politics, Possibilities (Routledge, 2022); Lobby Activism: Feminism(s)+Art Education (NAEA, 2021); Including Difference (NAEA, 2013); InCITE, InSIGHT, InSITE (NAEA, 2008); Engaging Visual Culture (Davis, 2007). Her research focuses on feminist critical disability studies, feminist art pedagogy, transcultural dialogue, and eco-social justice art education.
Michele Mekel, associate director of the Penn State Bioethics Program, served as co-principal investigator of the Viral Imaginations project (viralimaginations.psu.edu). She has served in various legal, bioethics, healthcare, and academic roles, including in international settings. Mekel’s poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and been nominated for Best of the Net. In 2023, her first poetry collection, entitled Under a Quiet Moon, was released.
Special thanks to the artists and writers lending their work from Covid Chronicles (Graphic Mundi, Kendra Boileau & Rich Johnson Eds., 2020) and co-editor Kendra Boileau.
September- October run (projections left to right):
- “If I Was” by Justin Larocca Hassen
- “Meditations” by Gerry Chow
- “New Model Consultation” by Dr. Ian Williams
November-December run (projections left to right):
- “Corona Diary” by Hatiye Garip
- “Between Two Worlds” Story by Julio Anita, illustrated by Jacob Salcedo, and lettered by Hassan Ostmane-Elaou
- “My New Normal: Rinse and Repeat” Story by Rob Kraneveldt and art by Mike Garcia
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