Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry - Related Events

Opening Reception
Saturday, May 20, 7:00-10:00 p.m.
Tickets $10/$5 for WAM members, students, seniors, and health care workers
For tickets call the Membership Office at 612-625-4460

Exhibition viewing and refreshments are highlighted by performances by the Twin Cities' Gay Men's Chorus and the Bel Canto Voices, a girls' chorus. The Twin Cities' Gay Men's Chorus present "Donna's Song" in memory of a chorus member's sister who died of breast cancer; and "Matthew's Lullaby," a tribute to Matthew Shepherd composed by Craig Carnahan, chorus director. "Today, This Spring," performed by the Bel Canto Voices, is a song cycle composed by Libby Larsen commissioned in memory of Paula Cooper and Kathy Scott, two Minneapolis women who died young from breast cancer. In addition, expressions of grief and healing in prose and poetry are read by local actors Claudia Wilkens and Richard Ooms.

Dance Performance
Where Are You?-Moving Inquiries
Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater
Thursday, May 25 and Saturday, May 27,8:00 p.m.
$10/$5 Weisman members, students, seniors, and health care workers
For tickets call the Museum Store at 612-625-9495

For over twenty years, Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater has created powerful performances about grief, death, and dying, often working in collaboration with healthcare workers. In this three-part program, the company unveils a new piece created with local hospice caregivers; performs an excerpt from their signature work Swimming to Cecile, inspired by the death of Stuart's mother; and concludes with a discussion with co-artistic directors Stuart Pimsler and Suzanne Costello. This performance is cosponsored by Pathways, A Health Crisis Resource Center.

College of Liberal Arts Critical Dialogues Series
Discussion: The Ethics of End-of-Life Care
Susan Wolf, Alex Rothman, and Barry Baines
Wednesday, May 31, 7:00 p.m.
Reception begins at 6:00 p.m.

When a loved one has a terminal illness, many ethical issues arise. Join a distinguished panel of speakers for a discussion of the ways in which families, physicians, and health care workers can provide humane end-of-life care and the societal and legal ramifications related these issues. Susan Wolf is a faculty member at the University of Minnesota Law School and the Center for Bioethics at the Medical School. Alex Rothman is associate professor in the department of psychology. Barry Baines, M.D. is medical director of HealthPartners Hospice of the Lakes.

The Florence Schorske Wald Palliative Care/Hospice Lectureship presented by the Katharine J. Densford Center for Nursing Leadership Public Lecture
The Ethics of Caring: A Vision for the New Millennium
Ira Byock
Wednesday, June 7, 3:00 p.m.
Radisson Hotel Metrodome Ballroom
615 Washington Avenue, Minneapolis
Reception and tours of the exhibition follow at the Weisman Art Museum
4:30-6:00 p.m.

Ira Byock, M.D. has been involved in hospice and palliative care since he helped found a hospice home care program in Fresno, California in 1978. He served for five years as Chair for the Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Ethics Committee, and for six years on the Ethics Committee of the National Hospice Organization. He has authored numerous articles on the ethics and practice of end-of-life care. His book, Dying Well: The Prospect for Growth at the End of Life is a Putnam/Riverhead publication. In 1995, Dr. Bycok received the National Hospice Organization's prestigious Person of the Year award.
This event is cosponsored by the Center for Spirituality and Healing, the Center for Bioethics, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, all at the University of Minnesota.

Dialogue
A Conversation with Photographer Jim Goldberg
Jim Goldberg and George Slade
Thursday, June 15, 7:00 p.m.

When commissioned to participate in Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry, nationally-known photographer Jim Goldberg's father was dying and in need of hospice care. The artist chose to take on the difficult endeavor of documenting his father's last eight months of life, using photography, video, and written diary accounts of his family's experiences. Photography historian George Slade talks with Goldberg about this work and its relation to other projects, such as his 1995 book about homeless adolescents, Raised by Wolves.

Readings
Give Sorrow Words: Passages of Grieving
Andris Baltins, Patrice Clark Koelsch, William Reichard, Margaret Wurtele
Thursday, June 29, 7:00 p.m.

For centuries, writers have given voice to our common feelings of grief, penning words to commemorate loved ones. In this program of readings, four local authors share their own work, which reflects on caring for loved ones and grieving their deaths.
oAndris Baltins is completing a memoir based on the 1996 death of his wife called Love Letters: Experiencing Loss through Gratitude. He practices business law as a partner of Kaplan, Strangis and Kaplan.
oPatrice Clark Koelsch reads from her "philosophical memoir" on mortality. She writes for a variety of national and regional publications, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and works as a caregiver for people with AIDS.
oWilliam Reichard reads from his collection of poetry, An Alchemy in the Bones, recently published by New Rivers Press, and Harmony, a novella published in The Evergreen Chronicles. He was poetry editor of The James White Review for many years.
oMargaret Wurtele reads from her first book, Taking Root: A Spiritual Memoir, and from a new manuscript about the aftermath of her son's climbing death. She is an owner of The Ruminator Press (formerly The Hungry Mind Press).

Class
Expressions of Grief and Healing in Photography and Literature
Patrice Clark Koelsch
Tuesdays, July 11-August 1 (four meetings)
6:30-8:30 p.m.
$87/$78.30 age 62+ and Weisman members
Billy and Jody Weisman Family Seminar Room
To register call the Compleat Scholar at 612-625-7777

Shakespeare's advice to the bereft is still good medicine: "Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak /Whispers the o'er fraught heart and bids it break." Metaphors and images are a very human and very humane way of articulating and understanding our most profoundly transforming experiences. This class explores expressions of grief and healing in prose, poetry, and photography. At the start, the class tours and discusses the exhibition Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry. The class uses Anne McCracken and Mary Semel's anthology A Broken Heart Still Beats (which includes selections from C.S. Lewis, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Rita Dove), and reads Donald Hall's book of narrative poems Without as well as selections from Mark Doty's luminous memoir Heaven's Coast.

Patrice Clark Koelsch is a writer, teacher, and critic who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has worked as a caregiver for people with AIDS and is currently writing a book about compassion in action

Miniseries
Stories of Passage from Different Cultures
Representatives from three growing Twin Cities communities explore different cultural perspectives on death practices and traditions of caring for the dying. Speakers also engage the audience in a discussion of the implications of cultural and religious beliefs for health care and social service providers.

Somali Perspectives
Douglas Pryce and Osman Ahmed
Thursday, July 13, 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Douglas Pryce is attending physician at Hennepin County Medical Center and Instructor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Dr. Osman Ahmed is assistant director of Sahan Educational Project and Somali patient advocate at Hennepin County Medical Center. Cosponsored by the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation at Hennepin County Medical Center.

Hmong Perspectives
True Thao
Thursday, July 20, 7:00 p.m.
True Thao, a licensed social worker, is solo practitioner of True Thao Counseling Service, which serves the Hmong community in the Twin Cities. He is also a consultant and partner with Integral Counseling, Inc. of St. Paul.

Native American Perspectives
Yako Myers
Thursday, July 27, 7:00 p.m.
Yako Myers, a licensed social worker, is the executive director of Treaty of Peace, an organization devoted to promoting peace and personal and social health in American Indian communities locally and nationally. She was former outreach coordinator for the Minnesota American Indian AIDS Task Force.

Lecture Demonstration
Body Jazz: The Voice of Healing
Marilyn Habermas-Scher
Thursday, August 3, 7:00 p.m.
Dolly Fiterman Riverview Gallery

Join Marilyn Habermas-Scher in a presentation on the power of the human voice when used as a tool for healing. In this performance-demonstration program, she shares stories of her work at Methodist Hospital and at Pathways, A Health Crisis Resource Center. Habermas-Scher teaches VoiceWork, somatically based vocal training, in private practice. She has also taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the University of Minnesota, and Metropolitan State University. Her performance work has ranged from opera to choreography to performance art.