LOOK NOW PROJECT ™
The Look Now Project breaks down the barriers between a survivor’s public persona and their private struggles with breast cancer, and puts a face on the disease in our local community of Central New York.
Our personal stories and experiences as breast cancer patients and survivors are a universal resource for information, healing and support for anyone dealing with breast cancer—patient, survivor, caregiver, medical practitioner and advocate.
Look Now: Facing Breast Cancer
Look Now: Facing Breast Cancer breaks down the barriers between a survivor’s public persona and their private struggles with the disease. In 2010, Tula Goenka herself a breast cancer survivor, was the first of three subjects to be photographed for a prototype of the project. She relaunched the Look Now Project as a photography exhibition and multimedia installation with a new collaborative team. Cindy Bell, also a breast cancer survivor, is the portrait photographer.
In 2018, the Look Now exhibition was displayed at Point of Contact Gallery in downtown Syracuse. Interactive text, graphics, mirrors, and a silent short film, enhanced the exhibition’s visual core, which presented 44 residents of Central New York—25 with clothed photographic portraits and images of bare chests, and 19 who chose to remain anonymous except for their bare chest close-ups.
In 2019, the traveling version of the Look Now exhibition was installed at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.
TitBits: Breast Cancer Stories
TitBits: Breast Cancer Stories is an original documentary theater performance conceived, produced & directed by Tula Goenka and written by Nancy Keefe Rhodes with Kyle Bass. It features the stories of Anju Varshney, AnnMarie Giannino, Anthony Deboni, Barbara Genton, Colleen Anderson, Deirdre Bordies, Samuel Gruber, and Sheila Lemke.
TitBits is the second phase of the Look Now Project. Performed on November 9 and 10, 2019 in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium at The Newhouse School, Syracuse University, it shared the stories of many touched by breast cancer—patient, survivor, caregiver, medical practitioner, and advocate. The cast included four participants from the 2018 Look Now Exhibition and four new ones.
TEDx Talk
In April 2021, Professor Tula Goenka was a featured speaker at TEDx Syracuse University. She is a filmmaker, author, social justice activist and a professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University. She believes in the power of storytelling to illuminate oppression, heal trauma and create positive change. Goenka is also a breast cancer survivor, and has lived experience of the barriers between a survivor’s public persona and their private struggles with the disease. Her TEDx talk discussed the individualistic framing and isolation of breast cancer patients in our patriarchal society, and advocated using art as a model for sharing, participation, and building sisterhood and community, and shared the Look Now Project story.