Joan Giroux

Fulbright-British Library Eccles Centre Scholar Award (North American Studies)

Joan is a Professor at Columbia College Chicago who has exhibited and performed internationally. As the daughter of a geriatric nurse and hospice worker, Joan understood death as part of living, and developed an interest in how representations of illness, death, and dying reflect various societies’ acceptance and understanding of “the good death.” Joan’s interdisciplinary practice frequently provides context for community and personal reflection on loss, absence, and bereavement through active play and participation. Exhibitions include Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability, RISD Museum (2022); eco monopolies: a Commons Artist Project, MCA Chicago; Take Care, Weinberg/Newton Gallery (2018); and Ill at Ease: Disease in Art, University of Buffalo (2017). At the Eccles Institute, Joan will investigate origins of modern hospice in London (Dame Cicely Saunders) and Chicago (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross), culling research material to create drawings and collages for an artist’s book.