What is most true to you? How are you living it?
“I feel like what I have come back to, or come into, is honoring myself first. Which is something that I never knew how to do. I’m still learning it. It’s really amazing. Yeah, the concept of self-care. I can talk about it over and over and tell people what to do. But radical self-care is revolutionary.” ~Vonn Jensen, US-based cancer advocate and founder of Flattopper Pride and Queer Cancer.
Vonn Jensen (formerly Emily Jensen) is a US-based cancer advocate and vanguard approaching advocacy through the lens of social justice. They founded the movements, Flattopper® Pride and Queer Cancer, and work specifically with populations often disenfranchised or rendered invisible in the dominant breast cancer narrative. Using a variety of media, they have worked for visibility as a means of combating the marginalization that certain groups, such as the queer community, face during treatment.
Jensen is currently working with filmmaker Emily Mackenzie on Tapestries, a documentary series that chronicles the stories of individuals as they navigate their lives after a breast cancer diagnosis. In an effort to change the discourse around breast cancer, this project offers alternative narratives to the mainstream depiction of ‘pink survivorship.’ By sharing the complicated stories of people navigating life after diagnosis, we question our culture’s relationship with cancer, femininity, gendered bodies, power, and survival. For more on Tapestries, please visit
For more on Tapestries, please visit www.tapestriesdoc.com. For the latest on Vonn’s other projects, please visit vonnjensen.com and Flattopper® Pride on Facebook and Instagram.
What’s most true to you? How are you living it?
"So for me, what really interested me is the politics around reconstruction and what you do with your body. Body politics is a thing. What is that famous piece of art? The photo with the words, 'My body is a battleground.' That photo, when you are talking about women's bodies, says that everyone is allowed to have an opinion. What they should and shouldn't do with them. How they are supposed to look. What's going on? So breast cancer becomes this interesting intersection to talk about feminism to me. Body policing. How does this work? What is expected of us?" ~Emily Mackenzie, New Orleans based Director and Editor
Emily Mackenzie is a New Orleans based director and editor. Mackenzie is a graduate of Bard College and the New School’s Documentary Media Studies program. She has worked as a director, producer and editor for broadcast networks such as MTV, HBO, and Animal Planet and for documentary films - features and shorts - that have been screened at festivals internationally. She is currently working with US-based cancer advocate and vanguard Vonn Jensen on a documentary, entitled, Tapestries. Tapestries is a documentary series that chronicles the stories of individuals as they navigate their lives after a breast cancer diagnosis.
In an effort to change the discourse around breast cancer, this project offers alternative narratives to the mainstream depiction of ‘pink survivorship.’ By sharing the complicated stories of people navigating life after diagnosis, they question our culture’s relationship with cancer, femininity, gendered bodies, power, and survival. For more on Emily’s current project, please visit www.tapestriesdoc.com.
Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field discuss the lead up to Samantha’s participation in Equinox’s 2017 Commit to Something campaign. Equinox’s message around commitment and how our commitments show who we truly are, parallels the underlying themes of Last Cut in unbelievable fashion.
Equinox Creative Director Elizabeth Nolan speaks with Samantha about the power of commitment in life, not only the gym, and how Equinox chose Samantha for this image.
Samantha’s provocative image from the campaign conveys her empowered embodiment, which landed and evolved powerfully this year through her explant surgery and Last Cut.
What is most true to you? How are you living it?
"I think for me what is most true to Ronny is the desire to never stop discovering and for me the discovery is limitless. Discovery of myself. Discovery of others. Discovery of what the world has to offer. This inner voice inside of me that is always giving me advice and direction of where should I go, where should I not go." -Ronny Turiaf, NBA basketball player, world traveler and a truly generous soul and friend.
In 2012, I sent jewelry from my company, Adesso, to a stylist for a couple of NBA players. One of them, Ronny Turiaf, loved the pieces but beyond that, was moved by my personal story. We had something profound in common.
We both were cruising along in our early 20’s, feeling healthy when we were told that we were sick inside and needed surgery. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 21, and Ronny, after being drafted by the LA Lakers right out of college at age 22, was told he had an enlarged aortic root in his heart that required immediate surgery. We both made it to the other side and are probably the better for it, but the trauma of those experiences, including having your life turned upside down and then quickly put back together again with little time to process what happened, changes you.
Ronny called me for the first time on his way to the celebratory parade for his 2012 Miami Heat NBA championship. We went deep fast and that call was the beginning of our powerful friendship. We understand and learn from each other, and crossed paths in this lifetime to encourage the doing of great things. It was at dinner about a year and a half ago with Ronny that I first vocalized the dream of Last Cut project. I knew I wanted to highlight people’s stories through their internal and external scars, and here we are. Ronny shares his most recent last cut, which was an allowance of time and space for deep self-discovery off the basketball court.