28 Expressions for 28 Luminous Years

A photographic exhibition and speaker series honoring Ryyan Chacra’s life

April 10 - June 26, 2026

The Fulginiti Gallery and Gossard Forum, Bioethics and Humanities Pavilion, CU Anschutz Medical Campus

Ryyan Chacra was a remarkably gifted photographer who found beauty in overlooked objects by looking at the familiar from an unexpected angle.

Tragically, Ryyan struggled with OCD, a tormenting, under-diagnosed, and widely misunderstood brain disorder. It was difficult for Ryyan to express the extent of his suffering to his friends and family; in May 2024, he took his own life. He was just 28 years old.

Presented by the Ryyan Chacra Foundation in partnership with the University of Colorado Anschutz’s OCD Program, LOVE, ANYTHING will feature a series of Ryyan’s photos on brushed aluminum panels (his preferred medium) alongside excerpts from his journal entries. In total, the exhibition will display 28 works — one for each year of Ryyan’s life — with the goal of keeping his story alive and spreading awareness about the complexities of OCD.

OCD is a painful, complex, and varied brain disorder — one that can be crippling if not properly treated.

In conjunction with the exhibition, CU Anschutz will be hosting a speaker series to help shed light on the complexities of OCD. This series aims to help those who live with anxiety and OCD to not feel alone, and to empower those who love them to better communicate with and support them.

The series will open by stressing the importance of reframing OCD as a brain disorder, not a mental illness or weakness, as well as understanding OCD as a prison and a distorted lens through which those who suffer from it view the world. It will emphasize how critical insights and the right medical environment can be life-saving, especially through cutting-edge interventions like deep brain stimulation.

The series will culminate by drawing strength from loss and pointing to a future where the light of those who are no longer with us can trace a meaningful path forward through the concept of “unfinalizability.”

That concept is manifest in this initiative to keep Ryyan’s story alive and rendered consequential through his gift of photography and the work of the CU Anschutz’s OCD Program.

If it happened to a family like Ryyan’s, it could happen to any family anywhere.

OUR SPEAKERS:

Rachel A. Davis, MD, DFAPA, is a Professor of Psychiatry and interventional psychiatrist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She lives with OCD and depression and brings both clinical expertise and lived experience to her work. In her professional and personal life, she has seen how OCD shapes perception—intensifying meaning, responsibility, and doubt, while also influencing creativity and moral seriousness. In this talk, she reflects on what it means to experience the world through a different lens, and how understanding OCD from the inside can deepen compassion, reduce shame, and open space for more honest conversations about suffering and survival.