Mona Mukherjea-Gehrig was nine years into her breast cancer journey, just months from the 10-year mark often associated with remission, when she got the call.
It was January 2022. The cancer was back — and this time it was stage 4.
“I could not believe it,” said Mukherjea-Gehrig, a North Park artist and co-founder of the global nonprofit Keep A Breast Foundation. “So close to my finish line.”
What happened next surprised even her. Instead of withdrawing, she flew to Southern India for an Ayurvedic healing retreat. She took up ceramics. She booked a flight to New York City to see a friend.
“The new diagnosis gives me permission to live,” she said. “I’ve been unapologetically doing a lot more things.”
Mukherjea-Gehrig poses for the “Dreams Beyond Tomorrow” exhibit. (Photo courtesy of Galina Semenova)Mukherjea-Gehrig is one of eight San Diego County women living with metastatic breast cancer whose stories anchor “Dreams Beyond Tomorrow,” a multi-media exhibit opening May 17 at the Chula Vista Public Library Civic Center Branch.
The exhibit was conceived by Galina Semenova, an award-winning photographer and founder of the Womanity Portrait Foundation, after she received a Performing and Visual Arts Grant from the city of Chula Vista. She spent months finding women willing to go on record about living with stage 4 breast cancer, representing communities from North County to South Bay.
“This project is designed to give a voice to women whose wisdom often goes unheard,” Semenova said. “Through their stories, we learn that the quality of our lives isn’t defined by the time we have left, but by the depth of our presence in this very moment.”
The exhibit’s eight “Dreamscape portraits” are hybrids of traditional studio photography and AI-generated imagery. Semenova photographed each woman individually, then asked them about their dreams. She used those conversations to construct surreal, illustrative backdrops — dreamlike collages in which each woman is placed inside a visualization of her inner world.
Despite coming from different backgrounds and parts of the county, the women Semenova interviewed shared strikingly similar reflections. The diagnosis, each seemed to say in her own way, had become an unexpected invitation to start living.
The film, produced in partnership with Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Erin Pederson, moves away from clinical narratives to focus on personal stories and the wisdom of the present moment. Semenova said the medium allowed something photography alone could not deliver.
“With photography, it’s like a moment frozen in time,” she said. “With the film, there is a more direct message coming through from the person experiencing it.”
Those closest to Mukherjea-Gehrig have noticed a shift in how she moves through uncertainty. Her husband describes it this way.
“He always says a diagnosis like this would happen to him and he would just shrink together and sink to the bottom of a lake,” she said. “And he tells me that I kind of spread out my arms and legs and float on it.”
Her reframing of the experience extends to language itself. She said she stopped identifying as a survivor after the rediagnosis, gravitating toward a word a friend shared with her.“Instead of a survivor, we are becoming strivers,” she said. “That really resonated with me.”
Mukherjea-Gehrig said she had kept her stage 4 diagnosis private from many people in her life.
“I haven’t even told some of my closest friends that I’m stage 4,” she said. “I don’t want to feel pity from anyone.”
The experience of being photographed and filmed cracked something open, Mukherjea-Gehrig said.
“I was surprised that I can actually talk about it and really open up and put it in words,” she said. “When you get the camera on you and you’re seen — it’s like one big hug… It’s a beautiful feeling.”
Semenova added that she hopes the exhibition resonates beyond those touched by cancer, particularly at a moment when anxiety and uncertainty feel widespread.
“All we really have is each other,” she said. “The message is important. No matter what’s going on in the world, we’ve got to remember that.”
The free “Dreams Beyond Tomorrow” opening reception runs from 1-4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 17, with an artist talk at 2:30 p.m. and the public premiere of the 14-minute documentary film. The exhibit will remain on display throughout the summer.
For more information, go to eventbrite.com and womanityportrait.org.
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