First Friday: 2022 Day With(out) Art

Overview

For the 33rd annual Day With(out) Art, arts organization Visual AIDS presents Being & Belonging, a program of seven short videos highlighting under-told stories of artists across the world living with HIV/AIDS. The screening will be followed by a conversation with featured guest Clifford Prince King, a photographer and filmmaker whose work appears in the program, along with VCU professors Christine Cynn and Julian Kevon Glover, and ICA Assistant Curator David Riley.

Being & Belonging features 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).

From navigating sex and intimacy to confronting stigma and isolation, Being & Belonging centers the emotional realities of living with HIV today. How does living with HIV shift the ways that a person experiences, asks for, or provides love, support, and belonging? 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.

Video Synopses

Camila Arce, Memoria Vertical
Camila Arce presents a poem about the experience of being born with HIV and growing up as part of the first generation with access to antiretroviral medication in South America.

Davina “Dee” Conner and Karin Hayes, Here We Are: Voices of Black Women Who Live with HIV
Davina “Dee” Conner was diagnosed with HIV in 1997. For 18 years she knew no one else who lived with HIV. As she emerged from isolation and internalized stigma, Davina sought to understand the journeys of other Black women living with HIV. Here they are. Listen to their voices.

Jaewon Kim, Nuance
Through an unfolding collection of images, Nuance reflects the thoughts and feelings exchanged between the artist, who is living with HIV, and his HIV-negative partner.

Clifford Prince King, Kiss of Life
In Kiss of Life, four Black people describe their experiences living with HIV. Raw conversations surrounding disclosure, rejection and self love are expressed through visual poetry and dreamscapes.

Santiago Lemus and Camilo Acosta Huntertexas, Los Amarillos
In Colombia, many people living with HIV experience jaundice–the yellowing of the eyes and skin–as a side effect of the low cost antiretroviral drugs supplied by the government. Los Amarillos is an experimental video addressing the alienation and hypervisibility that the artists have faced as a result of this side effect.

Mikiki, Red Flags, a Love Letter
Through a cacophony of limbs, members, and sounds drawn from the party and play scene, Mikiki interrogates their own substance use and asks how we can return pleasure and trust to conversations about drug use.

Jhoel Zempoalteca and La Jerry, Lxs dxs bichudas
Lxs dxs bichudas offers a poetic dance dialogue in Zapotec and Spanish that explores the ways in which race, gender, and geography shapes the lives and bodies of people living with HIV in Mexico, a country marked by the ideological project of mestizaje.

Jhoel Zempoalteca and La Jerry Lxs dxs bichudas
Lxs dxs bichudas offers a poetic dance dialogue in Zapotec and Spanish that explores the ways in which race, gender, and geography shapes the lives and bodies of people living with HIV in Mexico, a country marked by the ideological project of mestizaje.

About Visual Aids

Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.

Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums and publications – while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. We are committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement. We embrace diversity and difference in our staff, leadership, artists and audiences.

Artist Bio

Clifford Prince King is an artist living and working in New York and Los Angeles. King documents his intimate relationships in traditional, everyday settings that speak on his experiences as a queer black man. King has recently exhibited work at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (Los Angeles), Higher Pictures (New York City), Leslie Lohman Museum (New York City), Light Work (Syracuse, NY), MASS MoCA, Marc Selwyn Gallery (Beverly Hills), and Stars Gallery (Los Angeles). Publications carrying King’s images as commissioned work and features include Aperture, BUTT, Cultured, Dazed, i-D, Interview, T Magazine, The New York Times, Vice, Vogue and The Wall Street Journal.