#still beginning

[amoqa]

Day With(out) Art, the program

Amoqa is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for the thirtieth annual Day With(out) Art by presenting STILL BEGINNING, a program of seven newly commissioned videos responding to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, and Derrick Woods-Morrow.

Shanti Avirgan, Beat Goes On

Beat Goes On is an impressionistic portrait of the activist Keith Cylar (1958–2004), co-founder of Housing Works and a central figure in the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) NY. Cylar spoke clearly, frequently and with moral force about the struggles of people living with HIV/AIDS in New York City, many of whom were impoverished and struggling with multiple social and medical problems. His openness about his own drug use and the centrality of the fight against the criminalization of drugs for AIDS activism make Cylar's legacy especially resonant and relevant at this time. A fellow harm reduction activist recalls how "Keith moved from mixing with the government, to threatening the government, to beating the government—all in the space of five minutes." By resurfacing and weaving together archival media of Cylar's own words and actions, this video will endeavor to convey—in the space of about five minutes—some of the personal charisma, political savvy and fearlessness that characterized Cylar's advocacy.

Bio: Shanti Avirgan is a documentary producer and archival researcher. Her work related to the AIDS crisis includes the feature documentaries Pills Profits Protest (2004); Sex in an Epidemic (2009); Larry Kramer in Love & Anger (2015); 5B (2019) and a forthcoming film about the photographer Peter Hujar. She has worked with a number of organizations in Brazil and the US to create, archive and curate video about ongoing HIV/AIDS activism. Shanti has also worked as a producer for National Geographic's climate change TV series Years of Living Dangerously, and the feature documentaries The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014), Life, Animated (2016) and Agility (2020), about the anthropologist Esther Newton. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies and Anthropology from UT Austin, was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil at the Federal University of Bahia, and has an MPhil in Anthropology from NYU, where she studied medical anthropology and documentary filmmaking.

Shanti Avirgan, Beat Goes On, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Carl George, The Lie

The Lie is the latest in an ongoing series of short films drawing on found footage and materials from the artist’s archive. Offering “ruminations on ruined nations,” the film aims to expose the links between war, AIDS, capitalism, and the persistent mythologies that bind them all.

Bio: Carl George is an artist and activist working in experimental film, painting and collage. His short experimental films have shown in festivals internationally and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim Museum and the New York Public Library. His 1989 film DHPG Mon Amour, documenting the radical advances made by people with AIDS in developing their own health care, is a classic of AIDS activist filmmaking and was incorporated into the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague (2012). His visual art can be seen on the Visual AIDS Artist Registry.

Carl George, The Lie, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Nguyen Tan Hoang, I Remember Dancing

I Remember Dancing brings together an intergenerational cast of trans and queer gaysians ruminating on the past and future of AIDS, activism, gay culture, love, and (un)safe sex. Inspired by Joe Brainard’s I Remember poems, these confessions illuminate perspectives of queer Asian communities often absent from whitewashed narratives of HIV and AIDS. Grief, regret, longing, risk, and pleasure surface as their memories and fantasies blur into one another.

Bio: Nguyen Tan Hoang is a videomaker and film and media scholar. His short experimental videos include K.I.P, Forever Bottom!, PIRATED! and look_im_azn. He is the author of A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation (Duke UP, 2014) and articles on porn pedagogy and Southeast Asian queer cinema. He teaches literature, film, and cultural studies at UC San Diego.

Nguyen Tan Hoang, I Remember Dancing, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Viva Ruiz, Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution

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. The process triangulates mother (Chloe), lover (Kelly), and child (Viva) in a deliberate ritual to uplift the spirit and legacy of an ancestral teacher. Through artifacts from the moment when video first became accessible and before mobile phone cameras became ubiquitous, we witness Chloe declare herself and her sisters as leaders in art, advocacy and culture for evermore. 

Bio: Viva Ruiz is the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants and a community and nightlife-educated advocate and artist born and based in New York City. The throughline of her work across mediums is a passion to dismantle white supremacy and exorcise the colonial/colonized mindset. In 2017, she programmed sex education and practical spirituality workshops as an invited curator for the New Museum’s "Scamming the Patriarchy" youth summit. Her 2019 solo exhibition “ProAbortion Shakira: A Thank God For Abortion Introspective” at PARTICIPANT, INC included work related to the multimedia abortion de-stigmatization experiment THANK GOD FOR ABORTION.

Viva Ruiz, Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Iman Shervington, I’m Still Me

I'm Still Me explores how digital platforms have created community and connections for Sian, a Black woman living with HIV and navigating the stigma and misinformation that is prevalent in the American South. Through her blog, social media accounts and online video platforms, Sian connects with (predominately) heterosexual Black women that send her messages, ask questions, and share their experiences with stigma and fear, all the while creating community that may have previously only existed in the shadows.

Bio: Iman Shervington is the Director of Media & Communications at the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies (IWES), a public health non-profit. Through IWES, Iman has utilized her script development, cinematography, directing, producing, and editing skills to create over 50 short films and PSAs, a web-series, a feature-length documentary, two feature-length narrative films and an award-winning podcast. In 2016, Iman was chosen as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader to promote a culture of health in New Orleans and she received the award as a "Changemaker" in the New Orleans-based Millennial Awards. Outside of film, Iman specializes in social marketing, social media management, graphic design, photography, positive youth development, participatory action research, and media literacy.

Iman Shervington, I'm Still Me, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, (eye, virus)

Through an experimental collage of video and pictographs, (eye, virus) explores how conversations around disclosure, stigma, and harm reduction shift across generations and from public to private realms. Combining street interviews with footage from a punk show and a mobile testing site, the video centers pleasure and community as it expands the conversation around HIV to include hepatitis C and the opioid epidemic. (eye, virus) extends from documentation of a 2017 public program titled AIDS OS Y Version 10.11.6, and is collaboratively produced with Nikki Sweet.

Bio: Jack Waters is a visual artist, film maker, writer, media artist, choreographer and performer. Jack’s work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, the New York and London Film Makers Cooperatives, Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona, and Anthology Film Archives. With his partner Peter Cramer, Jack co-directed ABC No Rio from 1983–1991 and founded the non-profit arts umbrella Allied Productions, Inc., as well as the community art garden Le Petit Versailles. The first part of Jack’s musical opus Pestilence will premiere at LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in Spring 2020. His visual art can be seen on the Visual AIDS Artist Registry.

Victor F. M. Torres is an intermedia artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Torres holds an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts and a BA in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, both from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is an Adjunct Faculty at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Torres has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson University, George Mason University, and UMBC. He is the author of Language Writes Myth Writes Reality: Or How Does the Acculturated Body Take the Role of Culture Maker?. Torres’ sculptural work snapshots the relationship between information retention, capacitive touch, and bronze age aesthetics, thinning the threshold between primitivism and futurism. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Monmouth Museum, MIX NYC, Maryland Art Place, and Grace Exhibition Space, among others.

Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, (eye, virus), 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artists

Derrick Woods-Morrow, Much handled things are always soft (8:36)

Much handled things are always soft unearths the unwritten and undocumented histories of public sex culture in the south-side of Chicago. Through conversation with longterm survivor Patric McCoy, the film traces the height of activity in the 1970s, the downfall of cruising culture in the 1980s, and the prevailing summer heat, which continues to linger. Together, McCoy and Woods-Morrow reflect on their relationship to cruising, to photography, and to each other; attempting to bridge the gap between what was, and what still remains to be explored. 

Bio: Derrick Woods-Morrow’s work is a meditation on deviation and disruption. Currently based in Chicago, his artistic practice deploys a wide variety of media, including photographic transfers, digital video collage, ceramics, and narrative performance. Exploring modes of representation, he salvages, displaces, and removes raw material from sites of historical significance and trauma, reimagines their future purpose and denies their perceived function, while actively interrogating the correlation between labor and play. A recipient of the 2018 Artadia Award, Derrick received his MFA in Photography from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and was most recently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography and Teaching Artist at the University of Illinois Chicago. His work appeared in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, in collaboration with Paul Mpagi Sepuya and his recent works were shown at YNCI V: Detroit Art Week Expo, in a solo exhibition curated by Darryl Terrell.

Derrick Woods-Morrow, Much handled things are always soft, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Production still by Patric McCoy

[amoqa]

Visual AIDS Μέρα Με (χωρίς) Τέχνη και τα "δικά μας"

(Scroll down for English) Την Κυριακή 1 Δεκέμβρη, στις 19:00, ημέρα αφιερωμένη στο HIV / AIDS το ΑΜΟQA συμμετέχει στις προγραμματισμένες προβολές του Visual AIDS Μέρα Με (χωρίς) Τέχνη. Παράλληλα με το κυρίως πρόγραμμα  STILL BEGINNING, το ΑΜΟQΑ επιμελείται την δική του εισαγωγή τιμώντας τα άτομα από την κοινότητα μας που αγωνίστηκαν και αγωνίζονται για την ορατότητα και την καταπολέμηση του στίγματος στον τόπο μας. ♥ Την υπέροχη βραδιά θα ανοίξει ο Άγγελος Τορτικώλης που θα μας μιλήσει για την 15χρονη εμπειρία του. Θα συνεχίσουμε με ένα μικρό αφιέρωμα στην εγχώρια παραγωγή με πρωταγωνιστή τον Ζακ και το σημαντικό έργο του με τις ταινίες U και “Plastic” και την συνέντευξη Ζακ Κωστόπουλος: Μια θετική ιστορία "Πραγματεία για το a.i.d.s.” και θα κλείσουμε την βραδιά με τις προβολές STILL BEGINNING: The 30th Annual Day With(out) Art.

Αναλυτικά: ♥ U Σκηνοθεσία: Μενέλας Σιάφακας και George Kanis / πρωταγωνιστούν η Zak/Zackie Oh, το Snoopy και η Vanessa Cardui / 2017 Η Ντραγκ κουίνα και ακτιβίστρια Zackie Oh πρωταγωνιστεί σε αυτήν την μικρού μήκους ταινία σχετική με το αντίκτυπο που έχει η αρνητική συμπεριφορά που δέχονται τα άτομα με ΗΙV. Ακολουθώντας στις καθημερινές του ασχολίες ένα θετικό στο ΗΙV άτομο, ελπίζουμε να καταρρίψουμε κάποια από τα τείχη που διαχωρίζουν τους HIV+ με τους HIV-. ♥ Ζακ Κωστόπουλος: Μια θετική ιστορία "Πραγματεία για το a.i.d.s.” Ντοκιμαντέρ / Διάρκεια 30΄ /  2010 Σκηνοθεσία: Δημήτρης Παπαθανάσης - Κυριάκος Χατζημιχαηλίδης ♥ "Plastic" (unfinished), Ζακ Κωστόπουλος & Filtig / 2015 /  3' Μικρό κινηματογραφικό βιντεοποίημα χωρίς λόγια βασισμένο στην εμπειρία του Ζακ κατά την παραμονή του στο νοσοκομείο, όταν διαγνώστηκε οροθετικός. Μέσα στο θάλαμό του, ο Ζακ ήταν ο μόνος ασθενής τον οποίο σέρβιραν με πλαστικά μαχαιροπήρουνα. ♥ STILL BEGINNING: The 30th Annual Day With(out) Art Το  ΑΜΟQA  συνεργάζεται με το Visual AIDS  στην τριακοστή  επέτειο του Day With(out) Art (Μέρα Με (χωρίς) Τέχνη) με την παρουσίαση του προγράμματος STILL BEGINNING (ΑΚΟΜΗ ΞΕΚΙΝΑΕΙ). Ένα πρόγραμμα προβολών που φιλοξενεί επτά νέα βίντεο που απαντούν στη συνεχιζόμενη επιδημία HIV / AIDS από τους Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters / Victor FM Torres και Derrick Woods-Morrow. Τα επτά μικρού μήκους βίντεο παρουσιάζουν θεματικές όπως το έργο ενάντια στο στίγμα που γίνεται στη Νέα Ορλεάνη, την σεξουαλική κουλτούρα στο δημόσιο χώρο στη πόλη του Σικάγο, προβάλουν τον πρωτοποριακό ακτιβισμό γύρω από το AIDS ενώ ξεκινούν δια-γενεακές συζητήσεις. Υπενθυμίζοντας τα λόγια του Gregg Bordowitz ότι «Η ΚΡΙΣΗ ΤΟΥ AIDS ΑΚΟΜΗ ΞΕΚΙΝΑΕΙ», το πρόγραμμα των προβολών αντιστέκεται στις αφηγήσεις της επίλυσης ή του συμπεράσματος, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τη συνεχιζόμενη επείγουσα ανάγκη του HIV / AIDS στη σύγχρονη στιγμή, ενώ επανεξετάζει τις πολιτιστικές ιστορίες από τις τελευταίες τρεις δεκαετίες. Το Visual AIDS είναι ένα μη κερδοσκοπικό κέντρο της Νέας Υόρκης που χρησιμοποιεί την τέχνη για την καταπολέμηση του AIDS, προάγοντας τον διάλογο, υποστηρίζοντας τους καλλιτέχνες με HIV,  ενώ προφυλάσσει την ιστορία τους, μια που το AIDS δεν έχει τελειώσει. Το 1989, το Visual AIDS διοργάνωσε την πρώτη Μέρα Με (χωρίς) Τέχνη, ως μια έκκληση στον κόσμο της τέχνης για πένθος και δράση για την αντιμετώπιση της κρίσης του AIDS. Για την τριακοστή επέτειο της Ημέρα Με (χωρίς) Τέχνη,  Ακόμη Ξεκινάει, πάνω από 100 ιδρύματα παγκοσμίως θα προβάλλουν τις προβολές υπό τον τίτλο Ακόμη Ξεκινάει, αναγνωρίζοντας το σημαντικό και απαραίτητο έργο των καλλιτεχνών, των ακτιβιστών και των δημιουργών κουλτούρας, που έχουν ανταποκριθεί στο AIDS υπογραμμίζοντας παράλληλα την επίμονη παρουσία της επιδημίας. Gregg Bordowitz, Η Κρίση του AIDS Ακόμη Ξεκινάει (2019) ήταν πρόσφατα εκτεθειμένο στο Ινστιτούτο Τέχνης του Σικάγου. Ακούστε τον Bordowitz να συζητά το έργο σε αυτό το λίνκ (https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/we-are-still-at-the-beginning-of-the-aids-crisis-says-artist-gregg-bordowitz/4ea116a8-297d-42c6-8c6e-9ec9433e2fa2). ♥ Πρόγραμμα Οι ταινίες θα προβληθούν με αγγλικούς υπότιτλους (σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις ελπίζουμε και με ελληνικούς) Συνολικός χρόνος 52:47 Για μια πιο αναλυτική περιγραφή επισκέψου την σελίδα του amoqa στο www.amoqa.net Συνόψεις: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>In english Shanti Avirgan, Beat Goes On Beat Goes On is 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. Carl George, The Lie Offering “ruminations on ruined nations,” The Lie aims to expose the links between war, poverty, AIDS and capitalism, and discredit the persistent mythologies that bind them all. Nguyen Tan Hoang, I Remember Dancing I Remember Dancing brings together an intergenerational cast of trans and queer gaysians ruminating on the past and future of AIDS, activism, gay culture, love, and (un)safe sex. Viva Ruiz, Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution 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, I’m Still Me I'm Still Me highlights Sian, a Black woman 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/Victor F.M. Torres, (eye, virus) Through an experimental collage of video and pictographs, (eye, virus) explores how conversations around disclosure, stigma, and harm reduction shift across generations and from public to private realms. Derrick Woods-Morrow, Much handled things are always soft (8:36) Derrick Woods-Morrow reflects on the history of public sex in Black Chicago from the 1960s through the 1980s, in conversation with photographer and longterm survivor Patric McCoy. AMOQA is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for the thirtieth annual Day With(out) Art by presenting STILL BEGINNING, a program of seven newly commissioned videos responding to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, and Derrick Woods-Morrow. The seven short videos range in subject from anti-stigma work in New Orleans to public sex culture in Chicago, highlighting pioneering AIDS activism and staging intergenerational conversations. Recalling Gregg Bordowitz’s reminder that “THE AIDS CRISIS IS STILL BEGINNING,”* the video program resists narratives of resolution or conclusion, considering the continued urgency of HIV/AIDS in the contemporary moment while revisiting resonant cultural histories from the past three decades. Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over. In 1989, Visual AIDS organized the first Day Without Art, a call to the art world for mourning and action in response to the AIDS crisis. For Day With(out) Art’s thirtieth year, over 100 institutions worldwide will screen STILL BEGINNING, recognizing the important and necessary work of artists, activists, and cultural workers who have responded to AIDS while emphasizing the persistent presence of the epidemic. *Gregg Bordowitz, The AIDS Crisis is Still Beginning (2019) was recently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. Hear Bordowitz discuss the work here. / the space and wc of amoqa are accesible for people with wheelchairs / http://visualaids.org

[centralperkswift]

Hold your head up high Study the world with eager eyes A million shining tears The years fly by
I don’t know if I’ll succeed
But I was taught to dream
So dust yourself off you’re still beginning Sing about the thrillWe won’t rest untilThis world is good and fairStop settling for nightmares

songs I wrote when I was fifteen (8/?)

[withoutanumber]

still beginning

@calamitysshatteredson

Cloud should have guessed that sleeping in Aerith's church would be a bad idea.  Even excluding its proximity to the ruined Shinra Building, said to be the cause of Geostigma -- not that he had to worry about that anymore -- and the fact that he was sleeping in the cold on one of the dilapidated pews, it was a place of memories.  He had thought, initially, that the flowers would soothe him.

He wasn't wrong, entirely.  But it also weighed him down.

And it had come with other interesting side effects, he realized, once he had woken up, although she probably could have come to him anywhere.

“It was a mistake,” she admitted.  She still had her back to him, kneeling at the edge of the grass where the flowers sprung up between the ruined floorboards.  “I knew it was his doing.  I saw the way he intended to interfere.  So I had to stop him.”

She paused, turning just slightly.  Her hands stilled around the weeds she had been pulling.  From his position on the pew, he couldn't see her eyes, hidden under her bangs, but he could see the curve of her cheek and a hint of a sad smile.  “It will still work, just not the way I wanted it to.  He doesn't remember anything.  I just didn't want to leave this to you.  You've done so much already,” she continued.

“It's okay, though.  I trust you.”

He shook his head to clear it, running his fingers through his hair.  This was a nightmare.  Not the dream itself, but its implications.

He didn't wholly trust himself to not have made this entire thing up, but it wasn't a risk he could afford, if he was wrong.  And so, on a dream Aerith's advice, he had packed up his things onto Fenrir and headed south, first thing the following day.  He left a message for Tifa to cancel his deliveries and not take new ones for the moment, as he was going to be busy.  And then he turned off his phone, picked up some supplies, and left Edge far behind.

Mideel had been rebuilt a few miles away from its original location, and it had done fairly well for itself, even in these days where no one was doing well.  It was almost the bustling little town it had once been by the time Cloud arrived.  Shops lined the main drag through town, and there were residential areas springing to life off the side streets.

It was still perilously close to a good deal of Lifestream activity, though.

Sephiroth couldn't actually be here, could he?  Cloud was just crazy from this goddamn Geostigma, and his brain had made it all up.  All he had to do was walk around town, confirm that no silver haired men had washed up on shore, and then he could go back to Edge and apologize to a probably very upset Tifa for worrying her.

Naturally, it wasn't that easy.  And that was how Cloud found himself getting directions to the house belonging to the nice elderly couple that had taken 'the poor boy' in after they realized he didn't have any idea who he was. When he knocked on the door, a pleasant mannered old man answered, and Cloud explained that he had heard his 'friend' was here.  The words were a little bitter in his mouth.

“Well, why don't you come on in, then?” the man said, ushering him within.  “I knew someone would come looking for him.  He's a fine chap.  He has to have friends around somewhere!”

Cloud didn't say anything, but he had to bite his tongue relatively hard.

[unfitour]

Continues Beginning