The Flinn Foundation’s longtime support of Arizona artists and the biosciences is currently represented with an art installation on display in its Phoenix building’s lobby and conference center.
The exhibition, Uncommon Knowledge, is a partnership between the Tucson-based Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance and Roche Tissue Diagnostics that highlights the value of regular disease screenings and patient self-advocacy.
The Foundation, which formally opened the exhibition with a March reception, is displaying select works from Uncommon Knowledge, which features 21 Roche employees who received a disease diagnosis that impacted their lives, including breast, colon, prostate, and thyroid cancer, leukemia, human papillomavirus, latent autoimmune diabetes, and more.
The artwork tells their stories as interpreted by 14 literary and visual artists, according to SAACA, which has a long-running partnership with the bioscience company. The exhibit was on display last fall at the Ventana Gallery on the Roche campus in Oro Valley.
The Uncommon Knowledge artists, including the title(s) of their featured work(s), are:
- Angela Puffer, “Impermance”, “One with the Ocean.”
- Ash Hooke, “Daiboken”
- Ashanti Files, “Independent”
- Beth Surdut, “The Scent of Dill with Hints of Pine and Lavender”, “The Mechanics of Listening”
- Carrington Shearer, “Your Victory”, “A Master of Destiny”
- Carla Lobmier, “Revolution 2007”
- David Navarro, “Listen to Your Body”
- Dennis Wunsch, “An Unexpected Journey: Living with long-haul COVID-19”, “An Unexpected Journey: Moving Through Prostate Cancer.”
- Elaine Walsh, “Love Becomes Strength”
- Erika Segura, “Oasis”, “Saguaro Strong”
- Eve Stern, “Breaststroke”
- Hudson Keffer, “I don’t wanna leave so soon”
- Laura Thurbon, “Transformation”, “Transitional State Awareness”, “Open Heart”
- Rebecca Ganz, “Understanding the Dynamics of Healing”, “My Path to Healing”
The Flinn Foundation launched its art series with two exhibitions in 2022, displaying artwork from Arizona artists throughout its lobby, conference center, and courtyard. This is the first exhibition following the extensive renovation of the conference center, which includes two fully equipped meeting rooms. The rooms are available at no cost to qualifying nonprofit organizations closely aligned with the Foundation’s areas of interest: arts and culture, bioscience, civic leadership, and education.
The Flinn Foundation, a privately endowed, philanthropic grantmaking organization, has been a supporter of the arts in Arizona for about four decades. Today, the foundation supports the state’s largest arts organizations as well as smaller, primarily rural arts groups. In addition to arts and culture, the foundation awards grants and operates programs to support the biosciences, Flinn Scholars, and the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
SAACA is a Tucson-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation, preservation, and advancement of the arts, strengthening the bonds between people, place and purpose through collaborative, arts-driven experiences.
To learn more about the Flinn Foundation exhibition, contact the Foundation at [email protected] or (602) 744-6800.