Salvatore Iaconesi compares war in Ukraine to his cancer

Artist Salvatore Iaconesi draws a parallel between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his own brain cancer recurrence. Diagnosed in 2012, he initiated the ongoing performance "La Cura" to reposition illness in society. A relapse began in 2020 during the pandemic. Iaconesi argues that both war and cancer invade space and resources, introducing toxicity. He critiques the medical and military focus on diagnostics and combat rather than underlying causes, which he links to lifestyle and imagination. Proposing an ecological, open-source approach to art and life, he and his partner Oriana Persico run Art is Open Source and HER: She Loves Data. Their works are platforms for relational expression, embracing loss of control. Iaconesi suggests redesigning the body's form to coexist with cancer, analogous to rethinking borders ecologically. He calls for moving beyond realism to imagine alternative models for coexistence.