For over 30 years, Visual AIDS has organized annual observances of Day With(out) Art, calling on art institutions to respond to the ongoing AIDS crisis. For 2022, Visual AIDS presents Being & Belonging, a program of seven short videos from artists living with HIV across the world. From navigating sex and intimacy to confronting stigma and isolation, Being & Belonging centers the emotional realities of living with HIV today. The seven videos are a call for belonging from those that have been stigmatized within their communities or left out of mainstream HIV/AIDS narratives. ARC is honored to participate in Day With(out) Art for the fifth year in a row, in collaboration with California College of the Arts.
This one hour video program highlights seven under-told stories of HIV and AIDS from the perspective of artists living with HIV across the world, featuring newly commissioned work by:
Camila Arce (Argentina)
Davina “Dee” Conner and Karin Hayes (USA)
Jaewon Kim (South Korea)
Clifford Prince King (USA)
Santiago Lemus and Camilo Acosta Huntertexas (Colombia)
Mikiki (Canada)
Jhoel Zempoalteca and La Jerry (México)
Davina “Dee” Conner and Karin Hayes, We Are Here: Voices of Black Women Who Live with HIV, 2022. Commissioned by Visual AIDS for Being & Belonging
From the curators: “Being & Belonging began as an open call soliciting video proposals that highlighted under-told stories of HIV and AIDS. A jury of artists and curators—Ezra Benus, Jorge Bordello, Lauraberth Lima, and nico wheadon—reviewed these proposals with the aim of bringing together voices that have historically been excluded from narratives about the AIDS crisis. The result is a program of seven short videos that stand apart from representations of HIV in popular culture.
This year marks the first time since we began commissioning videos in 2014 that the entire program is created from the perspective of artists living with HIV. Residing in five countries across the globe, this year’s artists represent a younger generation who were mostly diagnosed with HIV after the introduction of antiretroviral treatment in 1996—a turning point in the epidemic that drastically improved the life chances of people living with HIV. Their videos are decidedly focused on the present moment, expressing a range of contemporary issues and experiences that stand in contrast to narratives of tragedy, loss, or unprecedented heroism that are often placed on the first decades of the AIDS crisis.”