 My name is Mauro Fiorese. I'm 46 years old. I'm an artist, but I'm also a patient. As an artist I devoted my entire life to photography since I was 19, I was very young. And as a patient I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in July 2014 and I'm working on it. I find out I wanted to be a photographer who was very, very young. There was a little epiphany and also the biggest gift from life from a career standpoint. Basically for the last 25 years I've been photographing and exploring the world inside and outside myself with the idea to have a vision to share with the world. And I think what pushing me to do so and is still pushing me to do so every day is curiosity. And curiosity is probably pushing me so many times in troubles, but it's also what allowed me to do things that I wouldn't expect to ever achieve. And I guess it's also the same with me from dying today. I'm going to show you a little bit of what I've done until today. My very first work is called First Reading. I was really about street photography and experimenting at the beginning of my career, the medium of people, especially in Europe. Then the first real project in Bucca did was about a social issue, about handicap, ironically, entitled Free Body and tried to understand better what we call different and why we call it and we consider it that way. Last, later I published a long-term project called Aula Day to understand the sense of living and believing the God I grew up with by looking at religious iconography in everyday life. As advertised as a work to explore the city I was living in, New York, which is the most photographed city in the world. Once upon a blue was all shot in Italy in a lake, a restaurant, and people by water and blue were the predominant color. Another long-term project, about 12 years, that's pretty curious, called UFOs and identified photographic subjects, explored the possibility of the medium to create a subject or stage in a situation that doesn't exist in order to make it plausible to the audience, the kind of real evidence. Dream of a Place of Dreams is a book about another smaller city, Montecarlo. I was hired to do this while it worked in a more surreal and poetic way than actually is and how it is always photographed. Eureka is a project that I want to be inspired, I want to homage light, especially the light we can't see with our eyes. Man Map of Love was a beautiful commission body or work by a friend, German friend, collector about couples around the world. And the last body of work I'm working on is called Treasure Rooms in my gallery, box art from Barona, which shows hidden art in the works of amazing museum storages where you can't see art and nobody's allowed, so it's kind of bringing them back to our eyes. This is basically a very condensed presentation of what I've done till today, both in terms of subject and style, but the best part of being creative is that every time I start a new project, I also try to understand myself better, both as a man and as an artist, by building my own position toward that subject and by creating my own photographic style that goes with it. So long story making short, in the summer of 2014, my body told me that there was something strong, wrong on my upper chest. And so I asked a friend to drive me to DR and then the rest is history. Of course, we all want to be safe and feel good, but a few months before I was driving my motorcycle in a terrible motorcycle accident. This is what I call my training, because I've been spending one year in surgery, rehab and not working, a lot of problems, and I was not ready for that, of course. But let me say first, I think we all are unprepared for pain in general, being physical or psychological, and no matter how much pain we already suffered before in the past. So you may say, damn, you're lucky. You got an accident first, then a cancer. But that's really, paradoxically, I have to thank that accident because it really helped me to be stronger and more ready to face and live with a stage 4 lung cancer today. At the very beginning, I thought, I don't deserve to be so sick. I mean, it's not fair why, you know, but is there anybody who deserve to be sick? Nobody deserve, it just happened. Only after a while, I understand that I can't pretend to be healthy anymore. As I was before, I can't avoid it. I have to face it, but most of all, I have to accept it in order to fight it, because this kind of disease is cohort. It's very subtle in the beginning, made it for a long time. And when it comes up, it's like an atomic bomb. It involves everything, your whole body and your mind, and those surrounds you. It changes everything. You know, cancer changes everything especially at this stage. And I'm not saying anything new, but the point is how to face it. You know, hey, if you're an artist, anything could be a source of inspiration for you, a great inspiration. Plus, at the same time, what you do can be inspiring for other people to get in contact with your work. Plus, the actual process itself, at least for me, of making art, in all these phases, from the idea to production, can be really therapeutic in many different ways. And also, art can change a lot of things. And also, I know that I won't keep making art until the last day of my life. So this time, I decided to use the same tool I always use, but in a more, let's say, diaristic way than I ever did before. And again, using photography, the images you see are part of a documentary movie they're doing in my story. And it's my daughter, Leda, who is actually by far strongest medicine. I tried. By doing so, I was exploring probably the first period of my life in order to let the people know what they eventually could expect, you know, or their loved ones in such a case, or simply to remind them how lucky they are to be healthy, not to be thick. So this time, curiosity again was the engine, but fear was the fuel. And it was a very effective one. And as an artist, I was driving like a Formula One praser in the track of disease. But as a patient, I was feeling like an 80 years old man. And then I created this visual and written diary called Libra and Cancer based on what I've learned and I'm still learning about cancer and about myself. And there was so much involved that images wouldn't enough. So I decided to add words, my thoughts that became part of all this. And I started for the point that I was born under the zodiac sign of Libra. But my ascendant was not cancer, but I have one. So I started ironically, you know, from the idea that the zodiac become, sometimes for many of us, we believe we can predict and control our life by, you know, looking at planets or listening to some prediction made by somebody else for us. And I loved reading the horoscope actually, you know, I believe in the force of nature, but, you know, but I really like to study and getting to deeper things that I am interested to. So when I was diagnosed, of course, it was shocked. I moved to my brother's place, which is by the sea. And I stayed by the sea and I look at the sea like a Zen monk for a week. And I was waiting for an answer or for an inspiration to come. And then I woke up. Finally, I started researching like crazy, like I'm on fire. I did first on the web, which was a big mistake because, you know, web is too much, you know, you just need to be guided. Then I called my friends who were doctors. I went to meet specialists in the United States. I talked to patient researchers. I met the people who runs company, collect data. I've seen videos of interviews by patients with cancer. I've seen tons of Ted met the conferences, biologists and so forth. I that's why I created Libra and cancer. I wanted to share all this information with the rest of the world through the more inspiring and creative way. There could be some time very straight because you've seen sometimes picture are showing, you know, my nose bleeding or my, you know, skin rise or, but sometimes they're very ironic and aesthetically more stimulating. So I wrote the first chapters like I was like on fire. I remember I wrote one just in a run to fly from New York with all the pictures. I was really feeling this responsibility to people like me to let them know more about what I was doing and how not not because it was special. So Libra cancer became something popular in my country in Italy. So newspaper wrote about it. I was invited to be on prime time to talk about it was kind of crazy, but few days after the show, I was received almost 200 emails and people, a patient who, you know, mainly say how good I was to make it through the disease. And I remember a lady, she wrote me that she was watching TV with her husband who was sick and depressed. And she said, see, he made it. She's okay now. You can do it. So of course, I had to answer to clarify that I didn't make it from a clinical standpoint. I was working on it. I was not healthy again, but I was definitely not depressed. And I was working hard and I was making it every day that that was the difference. That's the miracle of life and just been here now. And of course, you know, it's hard and it's it is still today. I explain everything in the chapters. I just don't hide anything. A lot of side effects. There are so many bleeding, diarrhea, vomiting, hair loss, skin rash, tons of medicines. The so popular chemotherapy scares everybody. I lost clients, I lost friends. Some of them passed away during the battle. I lost money. I lost my hair. You know, some people asked me, how can you be so positive? But you know, of course, I don't like it. I just would trade it with anything. But because of all this, I'm becoming a better man. I think I'm a better artist. I'm definitely a better father. So I help myself in different ways. I change my diet, change my lifestyle. I choose now and I don't let people choose from me anymore. It's a matter of choices. You may find a little arrogant, but I also changed my relationship with doctors and my oncologist and I love it. But being their shoes, I understand I've started most of the existing cures they show me for my case from Adrenal Carcinoma. And I know now how frustrating could be for them. Sometimes not to be able to make it. And actually, most of the time, knowing they're not going to make it at all because their success is based on helping us to live a little longer. And there's something very inspiring that I learned also through this journey with doctors and that we, artists and doctors have something in common. We're joking about it before I first say that sometimes we have both a big ego because we think, you know, we save people and we were God, we can create, we have these possibilities. And I think I really have also such a responsibility of course, medicine does, but for both of us, our job is our life. So it's a mission. It's based on passion. What we know for sure about cancer today, there starts with the sort of breaking of a balance. And this balance involves body and soul and mind. And there's a reason it's not just one. The first few months everybody was asking me, how is it happening? What was it? I know that I have some mutations. Unfortunately, my mutation is uncommon, so it's more complex. But I don't know if they're yet responsible for my cancer. So there are so many factors around, you know, maybe pollutions could be wrongful, shocked, you know, failure, genetic predispositions, so many things. But eyes of a photographer have been printing a document for many years with chemistry, you know, sodium hyposophyte. I love being a document. I've been staying in a document for 10 hours, you know, with this beautiful arcane chemistry, the red light, the atmosphere of a drink in my BLS and the jazz music. It was just magic to see the pictures coming up. It's part of the, you know, part of your passion. But for some reason, it sounds like everything starts from your hypothalamus. So our immunosuppression and all the consequences are kind of related to that. I'm not scientific man, so I'm not talking that way. But we're so lucky to have people who study in order to find a solution for our health. And we're lucky to have great physicians and oncologists to help us. But I think we, the patients who are sick, should help them back in the way that I just said. So the main theme here in the water economy forum this year is the force industrial revolutions. And of course the healthy industries are very big likes of this cake called economy. So from very little experience that I have at the other side of the market, I'm a consumer. I'm not a customer. But there's so many decisions involved from both a scientific and an economical standpoint. But there are only a few people who can take this decision. So since even with all the money in the world, we just can't buy our health back. I think the magic word in this field and market should be sharing, sharing really if you want to say I was connecting. So recently I met a guy in New York through my brother who built the company years ago who are collecting scientific data from a huge amount of patient with cancer in the US and is making it available and accessible to be shared between doctoral researchers and patients through an amazing clouding system. So when we all can have such access to information, we all at any level we can grow. We are almost free. So yesterday and his opening speech, American Vice President John Biden pointed out, I think with Dr. Collins, that we are today living a big data era of cancer. But we should be able soon to move to a big data access era. From data, doctors can research, they can get information, they say they can get from biology, which is very, very, very interesting to me. And one more thing about the level of relationship between doctors and patients to be enhanced in this way. It is common today to hear that doctors goes from curating to caring a patient. And I think it should be both because it's real about passion and real about compassion also. It's not just technical. It's got to be human because patients are, could be presidents, could be CEOs, could be anybody, could be fathers, mothers. And just a category. When I read the European Charter of Patients Rights, we have in Europe, I've also found out how much more as a patient we should ask. When we usually don't, this chart shows 14 rights. Among them, we have the right to access and information, the right to free choice, the right to privacy, the right to the observance of quality standards and the right to avoid unnecessary suffering and pain besides the right to complain and the right to compensation. So I've heard people mentioning this, by some time not enough. I've heard also people calling their cancer in so many different ways. I call it the guy. Actually, I call it the residence, even though it's not really paying the rent, but giving a beautiful apartment right here. You can stay there as much as you want to stay as more as you can. But the most stupid metaphor I've heard is the bullet. It's like something that life shot a bullet against us and now resides inside us. We have to extirpate it. The guy has to say it was a cop, so it makes sense. But cancer is something that grows inside us. So, you know, nobody's fault and responsibility. So it's simply a consequence of more factors, as we said. So we experience in our room sometimes too short, sometimes long enough, live. So after all, I have to say sometimes, but I consider myself lucky to have out of my side and besides my beautiful daughter Leda, who is really my most effective medicine I've ever tried and I have a lot, I have a lot to lose. I was healthy or healthier. I thought I had much more to lose just because I was supposed to have much more time than what I have now. So today, I can thank this guy, my guy for illuminating me and so many things that I would not have found out otherwise and for his biggest lesson is given to me every day. And this is to live here now as simplest that here now. We're probably going to have a tattoo on my left arm to remember that just in case I forgot because cancer definitely changed our life, but it can change its value. Thank you for listening to me.