In 2004 Ian Breakwell began to explore new ways of presenting his Diary. That same year, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, he embarked upon an ambitious video installation. Entitled BC/AD (‘Before Cancer / After Diagnosis’, 2005-2008), the life of the artist is expressed as a constantly morphing images of his face, from babyhood to the months before his death. Accompanying these shifting images, Breakwell narrates his last Diary observations, interweaving memories from the past and his continuing delight in small, everyday epiphanies with an unflinching, often ironic, chronicle of his body’s physical deterioration. It is a moving and poignant reflection, laced with humour, wherein Breakwell confronts his mortality head on.
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