Visual AIDS Seeks Associate Director

Untitled (1982), Keith Haring

Job Opportunities
Posted: June 29, 2012
Application Deadline: Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Employment Opportunity: Associate Director, Visual AIDS
A leading New York-based contemporary arts nonprofit with a growing national reach, Visual AIDS uses art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV-positive artists, and preserving the legacy of visual artists lost to AIDS. Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual arts projects, while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. The organization is committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.
 
The Visual AIDS office is located in Chelsea and has a staff of two full-time employees (Executive Director and Associate Director), one part-time Program Manager, and variable interns, volunteers and independent consultants. Visual AIDS also has an active Board of Directors.  

About the Position
The ideal candidate has superior non-profit management skills and is deeply committed to the public presentation of engaged and challenging contemporary art and AIDS advocacy. As one of two full time employees, the Associate Director is an essential part of almost every aspect of the organization. The Associate Director manages the Visual AIDS office, develops new and rotating arts programs, directs the Archive Project -- as a digital registry, a physical archive, and a public resource -- and is the primary contact for artist members. The Associate Director works with the Executive Director to implement strategies, plans, and budgets to achieve the organization's vision, mission, and goals. The Associate Director works:

• To support and collaborate with the Executive Director
• To contribute to the financial success of the organization by managing fundraising efforts with foundations, individuals, special events
• To maintain the organization's culture of inclusion, openness, and respect with donors, board members, volunteers, artists, and audiences

 
Office Administration -- Strong organizing, budgeting, and some accounting skills are necessary. The Associate Director is the primary scheduler and office manager. Maintains and operates databases, including press contacts, donors, mailing list, and artwork information. Conducts day-to-day operations, including scheduling, managing office equipment, ordering supplies, and general correspondence. Assists P/T bookkeeper with accounting and supports Executive Director in yearly and project budget plans, annual audits, and financial reporting. Must be Mac proficient and experienced in MS Office especially Excel, and Photoshop. QuickBooks a plus. 

Fundraising and Development -- With the Executive Director and benefit committee, produce and oversee annual benefits (Postcards from the Edge and VAVA VOOM), including long-term planning; managing donations, sales and auctions; communicating with benefit committee, artists, honorees, performers and sponsors. Assists with donor cultivation and annual appeals. Provides research and administrative support for foundation and corporate fundraising, help draft and edit grant materials. Prior events experience a plus. Knowledge of DonorPro (or other donor management databases) highly desired.

Program Director -- Developing new partnerships with artists and organizations, the Associate Director helps plan and execute annual exhibitions, events and artist projects. Works with Project Manager (a part time position that will become full time in the coming year) to arrange all elements of exhibitions, including contacting artists and curators, arranging shipping, receiving, and installation of artworks. Manages the production of printed materials. Identifies contract workers, designers, collaborating artists, and potential partners. Develops time-lines and efficient scheduling for programs. Completes budget reports and invoices. Knowledge of and interest in contemporary established and emerging visual artists, arts writers, and HIV advocates is very important.

Artist Relations -- The Archive Project -- The Associate Director is the primary contact for all artists and estate members of the Archive Project. The Archive Project is the largest international image library of works by artists with HIV/AIDS, with over 17,500 images from 427 living artists and 103 estates. The Associate Director is responsible for the maintenance and preservation of all artists' records, provides career support, arranges documentation, invites new members, update files, publicizes members' exhibitions, and is an advocate for the artists. Manages the bi-annual Artist Materials Grant program , awarding approximately 60 artists per year, as well as Emergency Grant requests. Assists curators, researchers, art historians and educators conducting research in the Archive Project. Organizes monthly web galleries. Oversee the completion of an online artists registry and communication with all current members by Fall 2012. 

Staff Management & Intern Recruitment -- Train, supervise and manage part-time and contract staff including interns, volunteers, project managers, curators, and crew. Recruits, supervises, and evaluates rotating team of event and office volunteers as well as student interns. Source of technical advice for compliance with program goals and projects.

Communications and Media -- Possessing excellent writing and editing skills, the Associate Director helps draft press releases and all outgoing Visual AIDS communications and social media postings, including Visual AIDS blog, e-blasts and Facebook page. Works with web designers to launch (November 2012) and maintain new Visual AIDS website and identity. 

Skills & Requirements:

• Knowledge of contemporary art and interest in AIDS advocacy, LGBT and social justice
• 3-5 years of arts administration or non-profit business experience
• Exceptional written and verbal skills
• Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills are essential
• A humble yet strong problem solver, long-term planner, and superior multi-tasker with a sense of humor will be a great fit
• Self motivator who works well with diverse groups
• Mac proficient, experienced in MS Office, Excel, and Photoshop. Knowledge of QuickBooks and DonorPro (or other fundraising database) are highly desirable

We seek a highly motivated visionary with entrepreneurial skills who can balance long-term organizational plans with hands-on, day-to-day work. He/she will be a flexible and highly motivated team player and enjoys the challenge of working on multiple projects simultaneously on tight deadlines. A strong network of NYC and national artists and activists that can be drawn into the service of Visual AIDS mission is a plus. The successful candidate combines these qualities with a commitment to the ideas expressed by Visual AIDS' mission and program structure. 

Visual AIDS offers a competitive salary, plus comprehensive health benefits.
A not-for-profit, 501(c)(3), Visual AIDS for the Arts is an equal opportunity employer. People with disabilities; PLWHA; people of color; women; and lesbian, gay, transgender/gender non-conforming and bisexual people are encouraged to apply.

Please send your resume and a brief cover letter by Wednesday, August 15, 2012 by email, preferably as a PDF to: jobs@visualAIDS.org. Include "Associate Director Search" in the subject line. You may also fax documents to (212) 627-9815. No phone calls please. For more information about Visual AIDS, visit www.visualAIDS.org.

Click here for PDF of this announcement.

Sean Strub...thinking about testing on National Testing Day

Today (June 27) is National HIV Testing Day and there will be a truckload of press releases encouraging people to get tested for HIV.  Getting tested for HIV is a good thing; knowing one's HIV status is important, both to protect one's own health as well as the health of one's partners.

But no one should get tested without also understanding the legal implications.  HIV criminalization is real, it is happening all over the country and it is on the increase. 

The slogan for National HIV Testing Day is "Take the Test and Take Control".  That slogan rings hollow when it isn't accompanied by information about the legal risks one undertakes when getting tested.  The slogan one hears in some quarters is "Take the Test and Risk Arrest"; the fear of prosecution is discouraging HIV testing.


Read the rest of Sean's article: Take The Test and Risk Arrest? 

FDA / AIDS: Cassidy Gardner

"Waiting (Detail)," 1995, Michael Golden, newspapers, bird next, HIV meds

Visual AIDS has asked community members to share their thoughts on the recent FDA decisions, recommending the approval of Truvada as a form of PrEP, and the sale of Oraquick’s rapid, over the counter, take-home HIV tests.  Through these blog posts, we hope to encourage conversation around these current events, and inspire artists, writers, and others to consider what is going on right now in terms of HIV/AIDS.  For more information, below are links.

Cassidy Gardner: I don’t believe PrEP is the magic pill. If the answer is still a pill, it is still capitalism.  What I do believe, is if this is an additional way a person can stay HIV-negative while taking the pill responsibly—and it isn’t forced on them—then yes it is  important and should therefore exist. But, is it likely that someone will take a pill as directed every single day, as it’s prescribed? No. We are human, most of our lives are not that organized, but  hat doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be an option.

Secondly, PrEP is not for everyone, really it’s not. PrEP could cost upwards of $14,000 a year, that is not what many of us call accessible. PrEP could be a very effective tool for sex workers, IV drug users and other at high risk populations, but how will it be accessed—mention paid for—and what does FDA approval do for these populations? Sounds like a money maker and less of a viable option for those who are already waiting for treatment.  This is not to say it should not exist, but if we don’t talk about access, we are missing the point.

Additionally, the effectiveness of PrEP in reaching high-risk populations will be deterred by detrimental obstacles such as HIV criminal laws that continue to exist in many states. In these states it may be harder to get a prescription for PrEP due to health practitioners asking patients to disclose personal information such as sex work experience or the nature of their sexual relationships. Can we completely trust how public health is practiced in these states? I’m not sure. But the conversation around PrEP is more complicated than even that.

Due to HIV criminalization laws deterring people from getting tested, it is important to acknowledge that, as humans, we have experienced and tried differing sexual behaviors that we have become accustomed to in one way or another. Some of those ways did or do not include the use of condoms. Condoms have been in many ways a great asset in slowing the epidemic but we have to be realistic: many people don’t use them, won’t use them, or don’t have access to them. PrEP may be a good option for those facing these realities. Many people involved in sex work or in contentious relationships may not have the option of using them entirely. We also cannot tell people how they should have sex, instead we can inform people of the possible risks and health consequences they may face.

What the new FDA guidelines for Truvada for PrEP show is that new HIV prevention technologies are important and necessary,  but if they cannot be accessed and used by high risk populations (many of whom will not be able to afford it), then this cannot be seen as a major victory. Getting people who want to be on HIV treatment on it is crucial and so is coming out with new prevention technologies. Yet in order for them to have the maximum benefits they cannot be elitist in their accessibility and target. Corporate and pharmaceutical greed should not continue to dictate whose lives are more important than others.

"Retrovir (AZT): Miracle Drug?" 1990
Kurt Reynolds

Cassidy Gardner is an entrepreneur, queer activist and a firm believer that conversations around sexual pleasure are integral to the strength of the AIDS movement. She is a community organizer and board member for QUEEROCRACY and a member of ACTUP NY. She is currently working on a campaign to combat HIV related criminalization statutes and stigma.  

If you have any questions, comments, or would like to share your own reactions please email us at info@visualaids.org 

Read other posts in the series:

Charles Ryan Long 

Mark “middle” Hubbard 

Cyd Nova 

All images are from the Frank Moore Archive Project.

More information:

FDA and HIV/AIDS   

Truvada as HIV Prevention:

FDA Panel Recommends Approval Of Truvada As HIV Prevention Tool
AIDS Activists Divided Over Whether Drug Will Help or Harm Epidemic 

Take Home HIV Tests

First at-Home HIV Test Nears Approval
Federal Panel Backs Easier Home Test for H.I.V.

Tony Feher - Book Launch & Prints

 

A Book Launch Party for Tony Feher will be held at Participant Inc. (253 East Houston St., between Norfolk and  Suffolk) on Tuesday, June 26th at 6:30-8:30pm.

This fully-illustrated monograph on Tony Feher is the first comprehensive publication to document the artist's career.  Released in conjunction with his traveling retrospective organized by Chief Curator Claudia Schmuckli of the Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, the book is designed by Matsumoto Inc., New York, and published by Gregory R. Miller & Co., New York. The 272-page book features essays by Russell Ferguson, Chair, Department of Art, UCLA, and exhibition curator Claudia Schmuckli, in addition to more than 100 full-color plates. 

  

  Tony Feher

   A Day in Oaxaca, 2012 

   archival inkjet prints

   each, 16 x 11 inches 

   edition of 45, 5 APs 

Using torn pieces of blue painter's tape applied directly to large glass windows, the artist employs geometric and starburst patterns that call to mind antique mosaics and criss-crossed brushstrokes. In an attempt to fix an aspect of the work usually reserved for the site-specific viewer, Tony Feher has selected three of his photographic details to be rendered as a series of prints. The prints are available for at www.artspace.com.

Last week of Undetectable

Undetectable closes this Saturday, June 30, but before the show closes, don't miss these exciting events and come back to view how the exhibition had evolved and changed. 

Performances by Mary Walling Blackburn and SKOTE  

Friday, June 29, 7:00 – 9:00 PM

As part of Mary Walling Blackburn’s work, Against Tenderness, the artist proposes to collectively translate a work by the pioneering queer theorist Guy Hocquenghem with collaborator Jaeeun Lee. This event will stage a reading of the completed translation, touching on Hocquenghem’s problems with tenderness. SKOTE is a performance collaboration dedicated to the movement arts. Glands is a performance rooted in the relationship between a body and the moments in which it seems to "betray” us, such as in puberty, illness, and aging. Curated by Rachel Cook.

 

Helen Epstein and Kenyon Farrow

Saturday, June 30, 2:00-3:30 PM 

A conversation between author Helen Epstein (The Invisible Cure) and writer and activist Kenyon Farrow will consider the problem of undetectability in relation to epidemiological and political factors.  

 

Undetectable Changes

Since the opening of Undetectable, several pieces have grown, changed or evolved along the way, such as Mary Walling Blackburn's developing translation for Against Tendersness, while Richert Schnorr's work Risk/Logic changed literally by "accident" after the work fell and shattered during the opening as was reconstructed by the artist.  Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay has also created a “mixed media en évolution" installed in the vitrine outside the gallery door of La MaMa La Galleria.  The latest version, Barbe à Coeur Mood Board 2012, and all the other works, are on view until June 30, 2012. 

ACT UP New York & Queerocracy

ACT UP and Queerocracy joined forces at this year's LGBT Pride March in NYC to protest the recent trend of states criminalizing HIV and people with AIDS. The march include a prison float with protesters dressed as prisoners and guards. 

HIV criminalization includes prosecutions of people with HIV for being unable to prove they disclosed to partners prior to having intimate sexual contact, but also people with HIV charged with other crimes but facing more serious charges or penalties simply because they have HIV.  For more information about the growing phenomenon of HIV criminalization, visit the SERO Project.    

San Francisco's ACT UP boldly proclaims "AIDS IS NOT OVER, AND NEITHER ARE WE!

via Daily Kos

Last night at 18th and Castro in San Francisco's Historic Castro District, San Francisco's ACT UP, (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) unveiled banners telling Pink Saturday Celebration goers that AIDS IS NOT OVER AND NEITHER ASE WE! According to one ACT UP member, this is ACT UP V2.0. When asked "why now" he said "Statistics show AIDS Deaths are up, new infection rates, especially among the young, are on an up tick.  People are ponce again dieing, at the same time ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program) is being cut, as well as education and prevention programs.  There is a general apathy in the community towards these risky behaviors, and it is time to pick up the sword again and fight for our brother and sister's lives!"

Along with the banners, ACT UP members were seen distributing condoms and bleach and doing AIDS education among the mostly young celebration goers.

ACT UP working with OccuPride

Among the banners displayed were ones stating H9OMES FOR PEOPLE, NOT PRISONS FOR PROFIT,  and C0MMUNITIES ARE NOT COMMODITIES -OccuPride 2012, showing that obviously the ACT UP members have joined forces with the new OccuPride group, and this was a joint action. OccuPride (bayoccupride.com) is a group that popped up a few months ago to protest the commercialization of the San Francisco Gay Pride Events, and seem to have as their goal to strip back the Pride Events and make it more about promoting Community, than about $5 Rainbow Colored Bud Lights, a Celebration of Community not a glorified Beer Bust is what we would like to see, one Occupier told me.

read more here

Happy Pride Weekend!

PLAY SMART for Pride!

Look for the third edition of the PLAY SMART trading cards at PRIDE events, including The LGBT Center, GMHC and Visual AIDS's Undetectable exhibition at La MaMa La Galleria. 

PLAY SMART is packaged with two trading cards, a sticker, condoms and lube. The trading cards aim to also create positive images of different bodies, come in both English and Spanish, and feature information to help you play smart.  Collect all four artists - Amos Mac, Iván Monforte, Richard Renaldi and Christopher Schulz. 

 

An open letter from the Visual AIDS Board of Directors

The Visual AIDS Board of Directors congratulates Amy Sadao on her recent appointment as Executive Director at The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Amy’s leadership has been integral to the growth of Visual AIDS and we look forward to her continued support.

We are pleased to announce that Nelson Santos will become the next Executive Director of Visual AIDS. Nelson’s dedication to our work in developing contemporary art programming focused on the pandemic, and in supporting HIV-positive artists, has been essential to the evolution of the organization. As we embark on new projects and an ambitious plan to expand Visual AIDS’ reach, his leadership and experience will be invaluable.

Visual AIDS will begin a search this summer for a new Associate Director. Thank you all for your support. 

Sincerely, 

Brice Brown 

Visual AIDS Board President

Amy Sadao Appointed Dietrich Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Penn

 PHILADELPHIA -- Amy Sadao has been appointed the Daniel Dietrich II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, effective Sept. 1. 

The announcement was made by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price.

via University of Penn  

Sadao is currently executive director of Visual AIDS in New York City.  In this position, which she has held for 10 years, she has built Visual AIDS into one of the most vital and prominent arts organizations of its kind.  

Her accomplishments include staging hundreds of on-site, traveling and online exhibitions of contemporary artists and curators, as well as associated catalogues, symposia, performances and advocacy materials. Also, she expanded the organization’s attendance, revenues, budget, donor base and strategic plan and built a board of directors and a team of more than a hundred interns and volunteers.  She has served widely as a consultant and juror for other arts organizations and as a public speaker and media expert. 

“Amy Sadao promises to be a leader of unparalleled energy and vision for the next phase of ICA’s growth,” Gutmann said.  “She has an especially strong commitment to forging collaborations across a wide range of diverse communities and placing art at the center of dialogue about the most significant intellectual, political, and social issues of the contemporary world.”

“Amy Sadao has transformed every aspect of Visual AIDS over the past decade, expanding its leadership in contemporary art and social advocacy while building the infrastructure and resources to sustain it for the future,” Price said.  “I have been particularly impressed by her understanding of the role of art in a research university – and in catalyzing intellectual and interdisciplinary inquiry in general – as well as by the knowledge she brings of Penn and Philadelphia.”

Sadao earned an M.A. in comparative ethnic studies in 2000 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.F.A. in 1995 from The Cooper Union School of Art.

ACT UP - Fight HIV Criminalization

Fight HIV Criminalization - Help Build the ACT UP Float for LGBT Pride March

ACT UP need help to build a float for Sunday's Pride March in Manhattan. The theme is opposition to laws criminalizing HIV transmission. 

Float construction occurs: 
Saturday June 23, from 2-6 pm at 369 West 120th Street

Then march with ACT UP on Sunday:
Meet at 11:30 AM section 4, group 24. ACT UP will assemble on 39th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue. Bring sunscreen, water and your ACT UP T-shirts or HIV Positive T-shirts. Some orange jump suits will also be provided.
 
ACT UP's say NO to the criminalization of HIV transmission. More than 30 states have such laws which drive people away from testing and ultimately undermine HIV prevention efforts.

ACT UP Fight Back

In Conversation: Helen Epstein and Kenyon Farrow

UNDETECTABLE -- Helen Epstein and Kenyon Farrow

RESCHEDULED: Thursday, June 21, 6:00 – 7:30 PM

NEW DATE: Saturday, June 30, 2:00-3:30 PM

La MaMa La Galleria, 6 East 1st Street, NYC
Free & Open to the Public - wheelchair accessible

 

Join Visual AIDS, for a conversation between author Helen Epstein (The Invisible Cure) and writer/activist Kenyon Farrow, which will consider the problem of undetectability in relation to epidemiological and political factors.

Helen Epstein is a writer specializing in public health in developing countries.  Her book Her book The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing The Fight Against AIDS in Africa was a New York Times Notable Book of 2007.  It describes the responses to the epidemic of Western scientists, humanitarian agencies, and ordinary people living in communities most affected by the disease. She writes frequently for the New York Review of Books and other magazines.

Kenyon Farrow has been working as an organizer, communications strategist, and writer on issues at the intersection of HIV/AIDS, prisons, and homophobia. Kenyon is the former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice—an organization dedicated to organizing, research, and advocacy for and with low-income and working-class lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Prior to becoming ED, Kenyon served as the National Public Education Director, building the visibility of progressive racial and economic justice issues as they pertain to LGBTQ community through coalition-building, public education, and media advocacy.  Read more here.

Undetectable features works by artists that uses the concept of "undetectable," a word that has come to signify new developments and modes of identification in the discourse of HIV/AIDS, and engages this emergent identity through a set of materials, texts, concepts, and practices concerned with presence and absence, transparency and contagion, the body and its limits.  Catalogue available at the gallery or download pdf version here.

For more information, contact Visual AIDS at 212-627-9855, info@visualAIDS.org or visit projectlamar.com

Join us at

Heart Attacks and Cures....

From NYTimes.com: Mark Abramson has been HIV positive since 1988 and writes about his experiences in San Francisco.

This week has brought both much news about the "Berlin Patient" and a story about the risk of heart attacks for those living with HIV. Working towards a cure is important, as is addressing the needs of those living with HIV along the way. 

Read more about the man cured of HIV at HIVandHEPATITIS.com.

Find out more about being POZ and heart attacks at the New York Times.

Got Something to Say?

Near the end of almost every episode of Strangers with Candy, Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) would stand up in front of the school to declare, “I’ve got something to say!” before launching into a summary monologue.

Do you identify with Jerri? Do you have something to say about HIV/AIDS? If so you should know about a way you can get involved in blogging, and about a new publication dedicated to HIV/AIDS.

HIV Prevention Justice Alliance is looking for blogger to  write about identity and HIV prevention. Learn more on their site (full of great resources): HIV PJA 

HIV, while always first a virus, is always changing as part of our culture. To be part of the every shifting conversation there is now Positive Frontiers. Learn more about the new publication, and if you are in the LA area, join them for their launch party! Find out more here: POSITIVEFRONTIERS 

Pride Etiquette: Works on gender, identity and sexuality

PRIDE ETIQUETTE
Works on Gender, Identity, and Sexuality by Kenneth Sean Golden, Shari Diamond, Paulo Freitas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jonathan Leiter, and Carlos Gutierrez-Solana.

June 24 – July 8, 2012 

Westbeth Art Gallery
55 Bethume Street @ Washington Street
New York, NY 10014
Gallery hours: Thursday to Sunday 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

Fresh Ink: Steed Taylor Tats Up Chicago's Navy Pier

via MixedGreens

 

Steed Taylor is not your average tattoo artist. His list of clientele sets him apart, without touting names like Rihanna or Beckham. This artist caters to a special set of customers, inking up what he calls 'the skin of the public,' aka city streets. His latest road tattoo can be found at the Navy Pier in Chicago, as a part of the BIGart exhibition.



Tattoos are commemorative and ritualistic in nature, meant to mark the skin with permanent expressions of tribute. Taylor's works accomplish this aim in the most public of settings.

 Creating a road tattoo is far more than just filling in stencils; in fact it is an extremely intimate process. Once the tattoo is outlined on the pavement, Taylor fills its skeleton with a specific set of names whilst praying over them. After this ritual the names are covered over to complete the tattoo and solidify the sacred design. Each location pays homage to a different set of selected people; Chicago's 'Galloon' for example honors the out gay and lesbian members of the armed service.



'Galloon' will remain on display in Chicago from now until October 2012.

HIV/AIDS Mixtape

via Hyper Flesh Markup Language blog

Hives. Hives. Music. Aids. Aids.
 

My friend Sheena made an art project called the HIV/AIDS Mix. It was a collaborative work where she asked participants to take a moment to think about a song that, for them, related to the pandemic. This could be extremely personal or topical, anything they wanted. After she collected 10 or so titles, she created a mix CD in the order of each song’s receipt. The power of this gesture was that, as a collectively produced mix CD, the affective links that each participant made with their own contribution was multiplied throughout the compilation. The chance order of the tracks allowed for meaning to build upon meaning, and made for compelling insight into people’s different relationships with popular music and HIV. But it was upon the first listen that the work really made its impact on me as participant and listener.

I was the first to contribute and received a disc within a few weeks. I was so excited to get it and rushed home to my grim little apartment on the edge of a highway onramp. I don’t know whether it was the excitement of receiving the mix CD or the exhaustion of having partied too much the 3 nights before, but I felt feverish as the first track played. As I heard Elliott Smith perform “Can’t Make A Sound,” a familiar wave of emotion struck me, having listened to the track on repeat the day of my HIV-diagnosis several years before. The final brassy horns faded away and a slow yet deep rumble of percussion ushered in the next track: Diamanda Galas’ “Let Us Praise the Masters of Slow Death.” 

Percussion and ululation. My heartbeat accelerated and I became delirious. The orange light flickering through my window gave me the impression that my bedroom was on fire. I sweated and cried. I hid beneath the covers for fear of some terrible retribution. Where Smith’s voice had cushioned, soothed, and supported me, Diamanda’s voice threatened, mourned, and pierced my heart with its unrelenting intensity. For what seemed like an interminable and unflinching period of time, I curled up in my bed, a  thrall to her voice. Is this what it was like to live while your whole world crumbled and those you loved succumbed to those masters of slow death? Was this the legacy I was born from, initiated into through the mixing of blood and cum? These questions were my fear, the gift of an irrational wisdom and raging calm.

What followed was silence and breath… And Xiu Xiu’s “Hives Hives.”

I died.

Dance of Hope

via A&U
by Chip Alfred

Two Israeli Artists Create a Dance Production About Learning to Live with HIV

Sahar Azimi has been a dancer and choreographer for two decades. Tamara Erde is a documentary filmmaker with a background in dance and theater. In 2010, they met and decided to collaborate. There was just one big question—what would the project be about? 

Azimi, then thirty-six, was going through a traumatic time in his life. Following the devastating end of a six-year relationship with another man, he was diagnosed with HIV. The dancer, who “creates from the heart, not the head,” was so preoccupied with his health crisis that he doubted he could choreograph anything that wasn’t about his illness. Yet he had reservations about going public with his private news. 

“I told Tamara I didn’t think the piece should be openly dealing with HIV,” Azimi recalls. “I was not sure I was ready to share it with the world. I couldn’t say it out loud that I had HIV.”

Eventually, he decided that was precisely the reason they should create the piece. At first it was tough going. At the time, Azimi didn’t even know if he would have the energy to continue his dancing career. “I had the worst-case scenarios running through my mind—dying a horrible death, thinking I would be sick for the rest of my life.” 

Ultimately, he found the strength to express his feelings through art. “Maybe if I can create another piece and put myself back on two feet, I can deal with whatever I have,” he thought. He wrote some narrative text, titled Morning, that is woven through the dance, Cell in a Human Scale. Morning captures a glimpse of the dancer’s life as he faces a new world and a new day. 

“I know it’s morning.
The body moves a few steps before awareness.
If I know it’s morning, it means there is some balance between the body and my subconscious.
Soon we’ll all get out of bed, me and my awareness, in my body.
One continuous moment has been with me for many long days.
For countless mornings the feeling continues
As if in the morning, after waiting the entire night for the body to wake up, this feeling is already there, waiting…
A vague feeling of failure, fear, expectation. /Desire, hope, and meaning have disappeared from my morning.
Awareness. Awareness that will never surrender.
Morning.” 

Sahar Azimi and Tamara Erde. Photo by David Adika

Cell in a Human Scale, co-produced by the Committee to Fight AIDS in Israel, is a multimedia dance piece set in a sterile white environment and performed byAzimi and Erde surrounded by a backdrop of Erde’s filmed images. In contrast to Erde, covered from head to toe in a white body suit, Azimi is clad in nothing but a jock strap and a thick layer of white makeup. His look is influenced by butoh, a Japanese contemporary dance form featuring dancers wearing a piece of cloth covering only their genitals. For this dancer, wearing an athletic supporter has another significance. “I remember that when I was infected, I was in a jock strap.”  

He describes his fifty-minute dance as “a very personal view of my first year after I was infected, coping with HIV and the fear from society.” He expected the fear, but he didn’t expect the reservations about the dance piece that he encountered. The dancer, who recently spent four months as an artist in residence at the University of Illinois, has never presented Cell in the U.S. or anywhere outside his native country. After approaching a number of dance festivals, Azimi received praise for his creativity, but heard the same response time after time. “They don’t think their audience wants to deal with the issue.” The show, which premiered in Tel Aviv in 2011, is scheduled for an encore engagement in Israel this summer and performances in Croatia in 2013. 

Azimi says audience members typically remain in their seats—silent and stunned—for several minutes after the production. “People are still writing to us to say how they were touched or impressed and that we changed something within them,” Erde remarks, noting that many people don’t know up front what the show is about. “It’s about HIV and yet it’s not about HIV. It’s really about the relation between a person and society—a different person in society—and dealing with the gap between them.” 

In Israel, that gap between society and people living with HIV may be wider than you think. The number of people diagnosed with HIV since 1981 is approximately 6,500, based on statistics from the Israeli Ministry of Health. In a nation of nearly eight million people, that figure may seem small, but the rate of new infections is on the rise. In 2010, more than 400 Israelis were diagnosed with HIV, the highest number of new infections in ten years. Stigma and discrimination continue to be major obstacles in the battle against HIV. Insurance companies in Israel routinely deny HIV carriers nursing care and life insurance. Since Israeli banks won’t approve housing loans to customers without life insurance, HIV-positive people can’t get mortgages. Some dentists refuse to treat HIV-positive patients; and according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, many children living with the virus don’t know their status. Parents fear their children will be ostracized if friends or classmates find out. Medications, hospital visits, and blood tests are often kept secret, and celebrities in Israel don’t campaign for AIDS charities as they do in other countries. AIDS prevention and awareness efforts in Israel lack a recognizable face, but that may be about to change. 

In recent years, Azimi and leaders of the Israel AIDS Task Force opened up to the media about being HIV-positive. Still, Azimi worries about the impact his revelation will have on his career. “The problem is I have HIV printed all over me in Israel,” he says. “It’s a small country. I hope I can find my voice and not just about HIV.” He plans to do school talks with youth about his experiences with HIV and hopes to present Cell in Israeli schools. 

Erde, a native Israeli living in Paris, says she just wants to keep doing projects like Cell “that influence other people and open their hearts or their minds to something.” Midnight East, an Israeli culture magazine, writes about Cell in a Human Scale, “One cannot remain unaffected by this performance—and that is where hope lives.”

For more information about Cell in a Human Scale, visit cellinahumanscale.blogspot.com.

Visit vimeo.com/saharazimi to see samples of Sahar Azimi’s work and tamaraerde.com to learn more about Tamara Erde’s films. 

UNITED IN ANGER: a review

a still from UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP

Working with filmmaker Jim Hubbard, Visual AIDS is proud to be distributing UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP,  nationally for Day With(out) Art, December 1st, 2012. If you are interested in screening the film in your community contact Ted at tkerr@visualaids.org. UNITED IN ANGER will be screening in both New York and San Francsico this summer: FRAMELINE and QUAD. 

United in Anger, a new documentary about ACT UP is hitting the film festival circuit. 

This is the story my generation has been waiting to see.

I started getting involved in AIDS activism and work in 2002 at the age of 17 – ten years ago, but still long after ACT UP was the force of intensity I later came to obsessively study. When I first became aware of the group, I felt a sense of loss about not having been there, even as I was grateful to not live in an era when the AIDS crisis was decimating my community with that same degree of brutality. 

ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power described itself as a "diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis." United in Anger illuminates how ACT UP exemplified an era in which queer politics were community driven, inclusive, sexy, unrepentant, and brilliantly dangerous. The energy of the film replicates that of the movement.

United in Anger, produced by Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman, is composed of footage from a wide range of video artists, activists, and collectives, including DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists) and Testing the Limits, combined with contemporary interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project.

The film provides a timeline of ACT UP, largely focusing on the New York chapter, where it all began in 1987.  ACT UP was not the first AIDS activist group, but it was instrumental in capturing mainstream attention through large-scale dramatic actions such as interrupting the CBS Evening News and political funerals that brought the bodies and ashes of people who died of AIDS to the White House lawn.

The immediate catalyst for ACT UP was a speech by Larry Kramer delivered at the New York Lesbian and Gay Community Center, wherein he asked two-thirds of the audience to stand up, then told them they would be dead in five years, so what were they going to do about it?

Where United in Anger most succeeds, however, is in not profiling celebrities. The history of the movement is told through a wide diversity of voices, some more recognizable than others, often transposing their oral history interviews with footage of them speaking out at meetings, shouting at protests, or being arrested. 

The film interrupts the common belief that AIDS is a gay white men’s issue, and that ACT UP only focus was on getting drugs into bodies. Robert Vazquez-Pacheco, one of the film's interviewees says, “What I saw was the opportunity in ACT UP for social change...using AIDS as the nexus of all these problems that happened in society, we could address some of this stuff and work towards changing society that way."  

A long segment of the film focuses on a four-year campaign to force the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change the definition of AIDS to include conditions specific to women and drug users. It is a moment where you see gay men acting in solidarity with women, as women supported gay men throughout the AIDS crisis, which feels so different from the often misogynistic world of gay men today.

United in Anger drives home that difference. It shows a community that saw what oppression looked like and challenged the forces that were killing them, instead of attempting to assimilate into institutions of privilege.

I watched the film with my best friend, holding his hand as we shrieked with joy and cried and plotted how to get back to something like the world shown in this movie is something we desperately need.

So, where did ACT UP go? Although the group's focus was broader than "drugs into bodies," once protease inhibitors came on the scene in the mid-1990s the wider energy began to dissipate.  Some chapters continued, other cities had theirs explode into drama, such as the split in San Francisco between a group of AIDS dissidents and a treatment-focused group. It was also time for people to heal. In all the excitement and the energy of protests shown, there is always the reminder of the real fear and grief driving it.

Today, 25 years after the birth of ACT UP, grassroots activists are beginning to reconverge.  AIDS is still a crisis. In the film a man holds a sign that reads “AZT: The Great Pacifier”, a particularly striking message. The crisis does look different now. There are antiretroviral drugs that are well tolerated and prolong the lives of many people living with HIV indefinitely, but this, activists say, cannot be enough. 

Currently, there is no cure for HIV, and as long as pharmaceutical companies charge thousands of dollars a months for their life saving medications we are unlikely to see one. Women, trans people, and gay men of color are still largely underserved. HIV is spreading rapidly through communities of color, pushed by the war on drugs and the prison industrial complex. ADAP and HIV prevention programs are under attack. The division between HIV positive and negative gay men has grown, along with the language of clean, “ddf ub2”, and it’s many permutations. The criminalization of HIV positive folks and sex workers reinforces HIV stigma and that fear fuels the epidemic.

The tide is changing. Resurrected ACT UP chapters have emerged in San Francisco, New York, and Boston, while Philadelphia continues to hold strong. This year the International AIDS Conference will be held in Washington DC—on US territory for the first time since the recently lifted HIV travel ban was imposed in the late 1980s. Now is the time to strategize, organize, and make demands. Communities affected by HIV seek AIDS action that is not only about putting money into the drug company pockets, but is about a complete overhaul of the laws, policies, and social structures that persecute us all. Now is the hour, ACT UP, FIGHT BACK, FIGHT AIDS. 

Cyd Nova  is a community organizer and harm reduction ho.  He revels in the company of ACT UP provocateurs, dirty queerdos, and a condom eating dog.  Excited to explore the limits of TMI, his stories span across frenzied visions of queer apocalypses, the vulnerability of glory holes, and transsexual revisionings of history.  He has written many zines of varying qualities, for Pretty Queer and HIVandHepatitis.com, and for upcoming trans anthology The Collection. Website: cydnova.wordpress.com