Book Talk: Ana

Book Talk: Ana Francisco-Horsthuis

Wed, Jan 21 • 7 PM

BDC Main
614 Courtlandt Ave
Bronx, NY 10451

Join photographer Ana Francisco-Horsthuis for a conversation with schizophrenia activist Michelle Hammer about her photobook and then the wolves invite me to dance.

All images: © Ana Francisco-Horsthuis

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Francisco-Horsthuis worked on the long-term collaborative project (2019–2025) that resulted in the book and then the wolves invite me to dance. The project focused on six people diagnosed with schizophrenia and grew out of the desire to tell stories about humanness, sameness, and difference, while recognizing that inner and outer worlds can be felt and experienced in ways many of us may never know.

The book, a self-published, hand cut, sewn and bound first edition, brings together portraits, visual interpretations of perception and feeling, and images made collaboratively with participants. It also includes excerpts from participants’ testimonies, the artist’s journals, and fragments of scientific writing.

and then the wolves invite me to dance received an Award of Excellence in the Alexia’s Vision Grant category.

Ana Francisco-Horsthuis (@anafrancis.co) uses digital and analogue still and moving images, archival and borrowed material, collage and embroidery, and poetic and discursive text to probe

memory and imagination, identity and belonging, and home and/as body. Ana holds an M.A. in fine art and design (specialization in photography and society) and a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and social sciences. She has worked and exhibited internationally.

Michelle Hammer (@schizophrenic.nyc) is a schizophrenia activist and founder of the mental health–focused clothing brand Schizophrenic.NYC. Featured in the WebMD documentary Voices (Tribeca X Award nominee), her work to reduce stigma has been covered by Mashable, BuzzFeed, and ABC, NBC, and CBS.