To encourage self-exams, museum visitors are invited to touch breasts on paintings by Rubens and Rembrandt

Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer worldwide. Survival rates vary by country but can be as high as 99% if symptoms are detected in an early stage. To encourage more women to perform regular self-exams, Argentinian breast cancer nonprofit Macma hosted an interactive exhibition at the Fernández Blanco Museum in Buenos Aires.

Full-scale copies were made of three paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Raphael. Each work features women with bare breasts showing signs of what could well have been cancer. The breasts were molded in 3D to create realistic lumps, skin retraction and swollen lymph nodes. People were invited to touch them, providing a sense of what to feel for when performing self-exams.

The Art of Self-Examination was developed by creative agency DAVID Buenos Aires, which worked with diagnostic imaging specialist Dr. Liliana Sosa to create lifelike signs of breast cancer. As reported by Muse by Clio, it was visited by over 10,000 people.