Visual AIDS will commemorate the 30th anniversary of Day With(out) Art with seven newly commissioned videos by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters, and Derrick Woods-Morrow. These artists will consider the continuing presence of HIV/AIDS in the contemporary moment while revisiting resonant cultural histories of art and activism from the past three decades.
This video event includes topics of an adult nature and is intended for mature audiences only; some content contains sexually explicit images and language.
- Shanti Avirgan will create an all-archival video portrait of Keith Cylar (1958–2004), the co-founder of Housing Works and a central figure in the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) NY.
- Nguyen Tan Hoang will return to two subjects from his 1995 video on gay Asian sexuality, “7 Steps to Sticky Heaven,” examining how HIV/AIDS has shaped their lives in the 24 years since.
- Carl George will present a selection of archival and found film footage from 1981 to the present, set to an intricate collage of sound and text, illuminating his experience as an artist, political activist, and longterm survivor.
- Viva Ruiz invites transgender AIDS activist, artist, and beloved friend Chloe Dzubilo (1960–2011) to speak via never before seen Hi-8 footage filmed by Chloe's then-partner Kelly McGowan.
- Iman Shervington will highlight Sian, a Black women living with HIV in Louisiana, who works in partnership with the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies to address the disproportionate effect of HIV on Black women in the South.
- Jack Waters will facilitate a collective and intergenerational examination of the stakes of disclosure.
- Derrick Woods-Morrow will document the geography of the public sex culture of Black Chicago from the 1960s through the 1980s, in conversation with then-amateur photographer and longterm survivor Patric McCoy.
Additional information, artist bios, and updates on Day With(out) Art programming can be found here: https://visualaids.org/projects/day-without-art-2019.
