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About Convalescence

Convalescence traces the experiences of five Philadelphians navigating the U.S. healthcare system. Conceived in collaboration with a group of Thinking Partners working across art and medicine, Convalescence furthers Pepón Osorio’s practice creating large-scale works of art addressing critical social issues in dialogue with the individuals and communities most affected by them. Drawing on relationships with medical practitioners as well as groups typically underserved by the healthcare system, Osorio’s installation exposes norms that disempower individuals’ inherent capacity for healing and explores alternative modes for community-based care.

Convalescence is presented by Thomas Jefferson University at its health sciences campus in Center City Philadelphia. The project extends Jefferson's ongoing medical humanities program, which engages students in the arts and humanities in parallel with their health professions education.

Pepón Osorio
Pepón Osorio is known for his provocative, large-scale, multimedia installations that merge conceptual art and community dynamics. Osorio has worked with over 25 communities across the United States and internationally, creating installations based on their real-life experiences. His work has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art; El Museo del Barrio; New Museum; Smithsonian American Art Museum; El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; and El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, among others. He is the recipient of various distinctions including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, and a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship.

Convalescence has been developed in collaboration with four Thinking Partners whose lives and careers have been shaped by health injustice:

Ricardo Nuila
For the past thirteen years, Ricardo Nuila, MD, has worked as a hospitalist and attending physician at Houston's largest safety net facility, Ben Taub Hospital. His first book, The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine, was selected as one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon, Kirkus Review, and Washington Post, and was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He is the director of the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) at Baylor College of Medicine, which integrates arts and humanities into medical education. His essays and stories have been featured in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, VQR, The New England Journal of Medicine, New England Review, and Best American Short Stories.

Magda Martinez
Magda Martinez, an artist, veteran Philadelphia non-profit leader, and COO of the Welcoming Center, whose artistic work focuses on untold stories and “lo cotidiano”. Martinez has served the Mural Arts Program, Fleisher Art Memorial, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, The Colored Girls Museum, Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Boys and Girls Club of America, Taller Puertorriqueño and currently serves on the board of Puentes de Salud. She is a founding member of Las Gallas, a Philadelphia based artist collective that toured nationally and internationally.

José Ortiz-Pagán
José Ortiz-Pagán, is a Puerto Rican artist based in Philadelphia, who is renowned for his dedication to using art as a tool to address social change. Throughout his career, he has initiated community art projects in the city, aiming to develop strategies of resistance to empower individuals and communities. Ortiz-Pagán recontextualizes spirituality as a means of resistance, creating meaningful experiences that honor and validate specific communities within various diasporas.

Erica “Quinha” Mukai Faria
Quinha Faria is an artist who draws from her experience working in hospital systems and medical facilities across the United States. While working as a Registered Nurse in an Emergency Room during 2020, Quinha founded the Philadelphia Packaging Company (PPC), a nine-person collective committed to conversations about the health of communities in the face of gentrification. PPC created videos and distributed hundreds of free, print publications honoring the stories of small business owners across Philadelphia. She is a member of the artist-run gallery Carnation Contemporary in Portland, Oregon.

Convalescence is organized by curator Rob Blackson; project director Megan Voeller, Director of Humanities at Thomas Jefferson University; project manager Jacque Liu; and public programs manager Chelsea-Mia Pierre.

Rob Blackson
Rob Blackson’s curatorial initiatives include Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, Funeral for a Home, 100 People Listening: A Shared Decade, 2021 - 2031, Philadelphia Doll Museum Forward with Barbara Whiteman, and reForm with Pepón Osorio and the Fairhill community. He is the director and curator of Washington College’s Kohl Gallery. For over ten years, Blackson served as the founding director of Temple Contemporary at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. An Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellow, his curatorial work has contributed to a momentum of artistic programs that share poetic and practical social purpose.

Megan Voeller
Megan Voeller (they/them) is an educator, curator, and writer whose research focuses on how contemporary artists engage with concepts and practices of health, healing, and medicine, and on the reciprocal role of the arts and humanities in medical training. Megan has been Director of Humanities at Thomas Jefferson University in Center City, Philadelphia, since 2016. They began their career as a curator at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, and as an arts journalist and critic. Currently a PhD candidate in art history at Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University, Megan is also Curator of Public Engagement for We Here, a project led by Mural Arts, artist Roberto Lugo and a Community Advisory Council in Kensington, Philadelphia, during 2024.

Jacque Liu
Jacque Liu is a Philadelphia-based artist, arts administrator, and educator. He is dedicated to bringing positive change to our neighborhoods and communities through the arts. Jacque has over 20 years of experience in art administration, working in public art, grantmaking, and community development. Recent experience includes serving as the City of Philadelphia’s Percent for Art Program Manager, as Forecast Public Art’s Program Manager, and as a Senior Program Associate at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

Chelsea-Mia Pierre
Chelsea-Mia Pierre is a seasoned project and event manager with a demonstrated history of working in public relations, event coordination, art education, and customer service. She has provided marketing and event support to the Arts Council of Princeton, Morven Museum and Garden, and several other art-based, community gathering places. With a BA in vocal performance and English, she uses her skills in creative writing and her keen eye for art to produce and repurpose appealing digital content for websites, blogs, press releases/media announcements, social media posts, flyers, and e-newsletters. With over 7 years of experience in project management, Chelsea believes that creativity can lead astray if it is not well thought out.

Jefferson Humanities & Health
Jefferson Humanities & Health supports student engagement in the arts and humanities to promote essential skills related to healthcare including close observation, critical thinking, communication, and empathy. Throughout the year, our programs highlight the social contexts of health and wellness, lived experiences of diverse individuals and communities, and self-care for health professionals. At Sidney Kimmel Medical College, we organize the JeffMD Humanities Selectives, a system of twenty-plus arts and humanities courses for preclinical medical students, as well as a four-year independent research track in the health humanities. Our staff team develops campus, public and patient-centered initiatives including the annual Asano Humanities & Health certificate program, comprising more than fifty events each year, the Helix Gallery exhibition space, and an Artist-in-Residence program with Jefferson Health clinical partners.

Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University, founded in 1824 as the Jefferson Medical College, is today a national doctoral research university and a pioneer in transdisciplinary, professional education. Home of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College and the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, Jefferson is a preeminent academic institution delivering high-impact education in over 200 undergraduate and graduate programs to 8,400 students across 10 colleges. The University’s academic offerings now include architecture, business, design, engineering, fashion, health, medicine, science, social science, and textiles. Jefferson is redefining the higher education value proposition with an approach that is collaborative and active; increasingly global; integrated with industry; focused on research across disciplines to foster innovation and discovery; and technology-enhanced. Student-athletes compete as the Jefferson Rams in the NCAA Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

Contact: info@convalescencetju.org

Major support for Convalescence has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Wagner Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.