Cait Toenjes

One of the Good Ones

CROS Thesis Installation

“One of the Good Ones is a deeply personal installation born from a six-month journey through chemotherapy, following the artist’s diagnosis with primary mediastinal B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of twenty-five. This aggressive, age-specific cancer became the catalyst for a creative investigation into the physical, emotional, and institutional realities of illness and survival.Drawing on memories, medical remnants, and embodied experiences, the resulting body of work becomes a personal archive—grappling with the contradictions of survivorship, the discomfort of well-meaning language, and the complexities of being labeled “one of the good ones.”Rooted in the therapeutic impulse of art-making, this thesis explores the uneasy coexistence of body and institution, pain and resilience, vulnerability and control. Informed by curatorial theory and the framework of the Cabinet of Curiosities, the installation uses the visual language of the archive to both embrace and critique dominant narratives around illness, care, and recovery.”