VANDAL Launches UNSAID Exhibition for Breast Cancer Awareness

VANDAL Gallery Presents UNSAID: an exhibition by Rhiannon Abshoff (Jansma), photographed by Jacqui Turner. 

Diagnosed with breast cancer at 32, Rhiannon Abshoff was a new mother on maternity leave, preparing to return to her career. With no family history of the disease, she entered the world of cancer feeling profoundly unprepared.

Far removed from Hollywood narratives of the cancer experience, what struck her most was how joy and suffering could exist side by side; life continuing, even as her own felt paused.

To document this reality, Rhiannon invited photographer Jacqui into the most private moments of her diagnosis and treatment. The resulting body of work captures vulnerability, resilience, and the quiet, unspoken truths carried by patients and their loved ones. UNSAID reveals what is often hidden; the physical changes, emotional weight, fractured language, and isolation that accompany illness, alongside the love, tenderness, and endurance that persist.

Rhiannon asked, “If one in two people get cancer, why aren’t we talking about it?

“UNSAID is for the woman on the couch who doesn’t yet know there is cancer in her breast, and for the partner who will one day shave her head. Dreamed up in hospital waiting rooms, bathrooms at 3am, and moments where the world kept moving, the exhibition seeks to create space for honesty, connection, and permission to fall apart.”

VANDAL invites industry guests, press, and friends to the opening night of UNSAID on Thursday February 12th, 6-10pm at VANDAL Gallery. Alongside the exhibition, the evening will feature a bespoke digital experience created by VANDAL, guest speakers including
ambassadors from Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation and Gather My Crew, and interactive illustrated trivia trading cards designed to spark conversation.

Guests will also have the opportunity to enter a draw to win a photography shoot with acclaimed photographer Minna Manu and participate in a silent auction featuring one of her artworks, featuring Rhiannon.

All proceeds, including a $10 entry donation, will support patient care at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre. Reflecting on the exhibition, Rhiannon said, “I’m still a mum, still a creative, still figuring things out -- but now with a deeper sense of why this work matters."

With young adult cancers on the rise yet still widely under-represented, UNSAID aims to start conversations for patients, families, friends, employers, and the one in seven people who will one day face a breast cancer diagnosis. It is an invitation to lean in with curiosity and kindness, to learn how to better stand beside those who are walking this path. This is a public event, with limited capacity.