Seeing and Believing: The Art of Nancy Burson

Seeing and Believing: The Art of Nancy Burson is a limited edition, full color illustrated catalogue which provides the first comprehensive overview of Burson’s career. Burson poses provocative questions about the nature of perception at a time when digital technologies and advances in genetic engineering have triggered grave concerns. In all her work, she asks: “How do you get people to change their way of seeing?” Drawing attention to interactions between con- sciousness and culture, she challenges assumptions about physical well-being and social identity. While her early composites enable us to literally to imagine other identities, her recent unaltered photo- graphs of faces scarred by disease, and those of hands-on healers, challenge our perceptions of difference and ask us to look anew at alternative therapeutic practices.