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.
In 1989 Visual AIDS presented the first DAY WITHOUT ART organizing museums and art institutions nationwide to cover up their artwork, darken their galleries, and even close for the day to symbolically represent the loss of life and art due to AIDS.
Since then, Day With(out) Art has grown into a collaborative annual project in which organizations worldwide present exhibitions, screenings, and public programs to highlight work by HIV+ artists and artwork addressing current issues around the ongoing AIDS pandemic.
For Day With(out) Art 2024, Visual AIDS presents Red Reminds Me…, a program of seven videos reflecting the emotional spectrum of living with HIV today. The program features newly commissioned short videos by artists working across the world:
Gian Cruz (Philippines)
Milko Delgado (Panama)
Imani Maryahm Harrington(USA)
David Oscar Harvey (USA)
Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar(Argentina/Colombia)
Nixie(Belgium)
Vasilios Papapitsios (USA)
The title is drawn from the words of Stacy Jennings, an activist, poet, and long-term survivor with HIV, who writes: “Red reminds me, red reminds me, red reminds me…to be free.”* Linking “red” to freedom, Jennings flips the usual connotations of the color and offers a new way of thinking about the complexity of living with HIV. Just as a prism bends and refracts light, Red Reminds Me…, expands the emotional spectrum of living with HIV. It shows us that while grief, tragedy, and anger define parts of the epidemic, the full picture contains deep, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory feelings.
The artists in this program were selected through an open call process juried by artists/activists aAliy A. Muhammad and Jessica Whitebread curator Alper Turan, and community organizer Josué Lopez.
The hour-long video program premieres on December 1, 2024, World AIDS Day/Day With(out) Art. Visual AIDS partners with museums, galleries, universities, and organizations around the world to present free screenings on/around December 1.
| The videos will be available to view online at visualaids.org/dwa2024 beginning December 1, 2024. |
