December 1 is World AIDS Day. The Frye Art Museum is partnering with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art by presenting ENDURING CARE, a video program highlighting strategies of community care within the ongoing HIV epidemic. The program features newly commissioned work by Katherine Cheairs, Cristóbal Guerra, Danny Kilbride, Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad and Uriah Bussey, Beto Pérez, Steed Taylor, and J Triangular and the Women’s Video Support Project.
From histories of harm reduction and prison activism to the long-term effects of HIV medication, ENDURING CARE centers stories of collective care, mutual aid, and solidarity while pointing to the negligence of governments and non-profits. The program’s title suggests a dual meaning, honoring the perseverance and commitment of care workers yet also addressing the potential for harm from medications and healthcare providers. ENDURING CARE disrupts the assumption that an epidemic can be solved with pharmaceuticals alone, recasting community work as a lasting form of medicine.
The Frye is excited to partner with Visual AIDS for its fifth consecutive year. Care has been a term synonymous with both the AIDS epidemic and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain images from the last two years come to mind—healthcare workers administering treatment to patients, community members volunteering at testing sites and vaccine clinics, and families caring for sick loved ones. Yet some communities continue to receive less-than-optimal care, particularly communities of color who have been disproportionately impacted due to lack of access to and discrimination in healthcare spaces. The Frye is committed to exploring the issues of our time through the arts—in this case, bringing awareness to both the triumphs and challenges of lasting community care.
Starting today, ENDURING CARE is available to view online for free. Watch the full video program at visualaids.org/enduringcare. Access the ENDURING CARE resource guide for additional information.
ENDURING CARE Video Synopses
Katherine Cheairs, Voices at the Gate - Voices at the Gate juxtaposes the bucolic landscapes inhabited by women’s prisons with archival and contemporary audio recordings of poems, essays, and interviews produced by women of color in the early 1990s at the intersection of incarceration and HIV & AIDS activism.
Cristóbal Guerra, Nobleza(s) de Sangre - Two fragmented interviews with artists living with HIV in Puerto Rico mediate an audiovisual invocation of the late Boricua poet Manuel Ramos Otero who passed away from complications of the virus in 1990. Guerra sets out to translate work Manuel deemed untranslatable, investigating the ongoing passions that informed his work.
Danny Kilbride, The Mersey Model - Danny Kilbride interviews Professor John Ashton, a public health official who helped institute the Mersey Model of Harm Reduction in Liverpool in 1986, the first government-funded needle exchange program in the UK.
Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad and Uriah Bussey, #Medstrike: Confronting the Non-Profit Industrial Complex - A chronicle of Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad’s 2017 medication strike against the Mazzoni Center, a LGBT health clinic in Philadelphia, and the direct action campaign by the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative that preceded it.
Beto Pérez, In the Future - In the Future tells the stories of people living with HIV in Mexico who have been unable to access treatment because of government corruption and widespread theft and looting of medication.
Steed Taylor, I Am... a Long-Term AIDS Survivor - Through a chorus of voices, Steed Taylor explores the difficulties of being a long-term AIDS survivor and the unexpected health problems facing many senior survivors.
J Triangular and the Women's Video Support Project, 滴水希望 (Hope Drops) - A collaborative video project made with women living in Taiwan who use their cameras to process stress and stigma, and to share their experiences living with HIV.
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Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that uses 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.
Caroline Byrd
Manager, Tours & Public Programs