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In this episode of Catching North Stars, I speak with Nathalie Latham, a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work bridges art, healing, and environmental advocacy. Nathalie shares how her creative path took a profound turn after a diagnosis of advanced cancer in 2009. What began as a meditative drawing practice during treatment became a powerful tool for navigating recovery, depression, and PTSD in the years that followed. We talk about the role of art and spiritual practice in healing, the courage it takes to transform suffering into creative expression, and how Nathalie’s work continues to connect storytelling, activism, and the natural world.

What does it truly mean to say “I Am Alive” after facing cancer, trauma, and the edge of life itself? In this moving conversation, artist Nathalie Latham sits down with stage 4 cancer survivor Sandy Duarte — author of Cancer Ramblings cancerramblings.com — for an honest exploration of survival, creativity, faith, and the profound journey back to life. Nathalie’s new book, I Am Alive, is an unflinching and luminous meditation on illness, resilience, and the healing power of art. Together, Nathalie and Sandy share a raw and heartfelt conversation about what it means to live after diagnosis, how creativity can help us process trauma, and how the human spirit finds ways to rise even in the darkest seasons. In this conversation we explore: ✨ Healing trauma through art and creative expression ✨ The emotional truth of living with and beyond cancer ✨ Faith, resilience, and spiritual awakening ✨ Living with intention after illness ✨ With gratitude, Sandy.

This is about that first quiet, destabilizing phase after treatment ends. Not “back to normal,” but not actively being treated either. Just after and forever. Artwork by Nathalie Latham from her book, I AM ALIVE. Nathalie was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer at 39. Her work is like watching a nervous system find language.

Today’s guest on The Many Faces of Cancer Podcast is Nathalie Latham, photographer and film maker, based in Paris, until her life altering diagnosis of Stage 3 cervical cancer at age 39. During her therapy, she was stuck in bed for 7 days and nights and needed activity to focus her mind, so she began drawing. As she recovered, she kept drawing to remind herself that she was alive. These drawings are now part of her visual memoir I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma through Art.

We talk about brachytherapy radiation, the role of art in healing, accepting the past, how nature and spirituality helped her recover, embracing joy in the creative process, finding beauty in trauma, and so much more.

This conversation was incredibly beautiful, as is Nathalie’s work, and a perfect episode to end 2025 and prepare for a new year.

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Nathalie Latham (Tamil Nadu) was a documentary film maker and photographer until cancer halted her life. Now, she has re-emerged as an artist, with a beautiful book about her treatment, recovery and emergence into her new phase of life. 'I AM ALIVE" is a testament to resilience and creativity, and how the two intertwine. With eloquence and humour, Nathalie talks to Jessica Fellowes about how it felt to surrender to the process of intensive treatment, her move to India and her work as an environmentalist. The podcast ends with Nathalie's moving Love Letter to Life.

'Beloved life, you are my love, my center. I honor you in all I do on this earth with these hands and this heart. In the meal I cook, in the tree I plant, in the hand I hold, in the drawing I create, in the joy I share.Sacred life, beloved life, I am alive.'

You can buy Nathalie's book from nathalielatham.com

This episode was produced by Vanessa Heaney.

Music by Alex Vickers

I AM ALIVE : Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma through Creativity is a visual memoir by Nathalie Latham.

Beneville Studios and Forum generously hosted the book launch with a conversation led by ‪@sonyabekkerman968‬ on 10 October 2025, NYC.

The book is an unflinching and luminous account of illness, faith, resilience, creativity and the transformative role of art in finding one’s way back to life.

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Nathalie Latham is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is fuelled by a deep commitment to storytelling, creative expression, and environmental advocacy. A polyglot and accomplished photographer, she gained international recognition with her critically acclaimed solo exhibition Love It & Leave It: Australia's Creative Diaspora at the Australian National Portrait Gallery in 2007. Her work has been featured in prominent international publications, including Le Monde 2 (France), Domus (Italy), Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany), and the Australian Financial Review.

Nathalie is also Director of Programs at Green Sakthi, a reforestation project which has so far planted 2 million trees in South India, supports women's empowerment and has educated 6000 local school children to date.