LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A series of photographs on exhibition at the University of Louisville captures the empathy, suffering and love surrounding a woman in her last two weeks of life.
“Beck: End of Life Photographs” is on display through May 16 in Special Collections, located on the ground floor of the Ekstrom Library on the university’s Belknap Campus.
The photographs by Gordon Baer will be the center of discussion Monday, March 25. Barbara Head, director of education and access of Hospice and Palliative Care of Louisville, and Kirk Hall, chaplain, will talk with Baer about the issues the photographs raise. The program will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Ekstrom Library Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.
Stanley R. Frager and Ruth Huber, professors at the university’s Kent School of Social Work, will join them to moderate a discussion with the audience on ways to find meaning and provide comfort when a loved one dies.
“Beck: End of Life Photographs” is a powerful series of images photographed over the final two weeks of an older woman’s life. Beck’s death is mediated through the empathy of her caregivers as they touch, feed and turn her. Her sisters, themselves aging, maintain loving vigil.
A Cincinnati photographer with Louisville roots, Baer received the University of Missouri/National Press Photographers Association’s Award of Excellence for “Finally at Rest,” one of the images in this exhibit. He has focused on grief before with the series “Vietnam: The Battle Comes Home.”
“Covering grief and trauma has helped us to talk about the unmentionables, allowing us to open up, to be able to talk and deal with our feelings,” Baer said.
The exhibit is in the Special Collections Rare Books Gallery. It is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, with additional hours to 8 p.m. Thursdays.
For more information call (502) 852-6752.