LUCY WISDOMLucy Wisdom, who died on 19 December, 2009, was a performance artist who turned conservationist after a battle with cancer altered her life view.She had been involved in the arts in manifold roles throughout the 1980s, such as tour manager of her brother’s band Specimen, an escapologist circus performer, and a member of industrial sculpture and performance group Mutoid Waste Co.She also travelled extensively and was part of a yacht crew that sailed to Barbados in 1982 - she then founded an archaeological society on the island.But her multifarious lifestyle was brought into focus in the ’90s when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a partial mastectomy.She embarked upon a volunteership in Sumatra working to protect organgutans, the start of what would become her life’s work in the conservation of the endangered apes.“I started volunteering with orangutans in 1994. It was due to the cancer. With cancer I decided to change my life; I changed my boyfriend, my job, my country, even my underpants,” she joked in a 2009 interview with an Indonesian newspaper.In 1997 she moved to Bali and founded the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) campaign group to raise money and provide facilities to help the animals survive in the midst of man-made threats.In the years that followed, SOS went from being a one-woman crusade to having branches across the world, while Lucy was named Ethical Businesswoman of the Year in 2009 among other recognition for her work.She eventually lost her long-running fight with cancer at the age of 53 later that year.
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