Verena Stefan’s just being

painting of a woman is superimposed over a sunny garden
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All night, Antouka had been thinking about death and dying. Fourteen years into cancer and some years into writing about that experience, Verena Stefan met Lorna Boschman through the Cancer Margin project. They teamed up to translate into video what Verena had envisioned as a writer and visual artist. Antouka, the writer’s alter ego, takes an irreverent and philosophical look at everyday transformations, her lesbian love of 20 years and the question of the afterlife.

Verena Stefan, writer and director of just being, was a Swiss German writer, translator and Creative Writing teacher residing in Montreal since 1998. QUI MAITRISE LES VENTS CONNAIT SON CHEMIN, her latest French-language publication, will be released in March 2017. There is a French translation of her novel FREMDSCHLÄFER (Zurich, 2007) on Lesbian love, immigration and cancer: D’AILLEURS (Montréal, 2008). Her work also appears in Trivia Voices (Go to: Previous issues, #4 and #11, and look up Verena Stefan).

just being was created during a Digital Storytelling workshop in Montreal as part of the Cancer’s Margins study. Lorna worked with Cancer’s Margins lead researcher Dr. Mary Bryson (UBC) and filmmaker Myriam Fougère on the workshop, held at Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. Cancer’s Margins used a community-and arts-based approach to exploring sexual and gender diversity, and experiences of cancer health, support and care. We looked at how LGBT people locate and share knowledge after they’ve been diagnosed and treated for breast or gynecologic cancer. Our research-based approach to digital storytelling combines professional mentorship and peer knowledge exchange to create powerful and personal digital stories.

To view more digital stories, visit us at Digital Stories.ca

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