World AIDS Day inspires “Being & Belonging” in the Quad Cities, more events in Illinois and Iowa

Join three Quad Cities area nonprofits for a multi-faceted recognition of World AIDS Day that includes the premiere of an international video about living with HIV.

The Project of the Quad Cities, DeLaCerda House, and the Figge Art Museum are joining together to present “Being & Belonging,” featuring an international collection of artists from many mediums sharing different aspects of living with HIV and AIDS.  “Being & Belonging” features artists of color and from Columbia, Mexico, Korea and more.

“From navigating sex and intimacy to confronting stigma and isolation, ‘Being & Belonging’ centers the emotional realities of living with HIV today,” writes New York’s Whitney Museum of Art, where the film has its worldwide debut this Wednesday. “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.”

”Being & Belonging” is produced by Visual AIDS,  a New York nonprofit organization and Whitney Museum partner that fights AIDS by turning to artwork. Visual AIDS offers the following summaries of the short videos, and their international creators, that are part of “Being & Belonging:”

• “Memoria Vertical:”  a poem by Camila Arce 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.”
• “Here We Are: Voices of Black Women Who Live with HIV:”Davina “Dee” Conner, who has lived with HIV since her diagnosis in 1997, speaks with other Black women living with the “isolation and internalized stigma” of living with the disease.
• “Nuance:” artist Jaewon Kim shares thoughts and feelings of living with HIV and having an HIV-negative partner.
• “Kiss of Life:” Clifford Prince King uses “visual poetry and dreamscapes” to present the experience of living with AIDS through “raw conversations surrounding disclosure, rejection and self love” with four Black people.
• “Los Amarillos:” this experimental video addressess the “alienation and hyper-visibility” of living with AIDS and HIV in Colombia, where “low-cost anti-retroviral drugs supplied by the government” leave those taking the medications with jaundiced, yellow skin and eyes. The film features artists Santiago Lemus and Camilo Acosta Huntertexas
• “Red Flags, a love letter:” “Through a cacophony of limbs, members, and sounds drawn from the party and play scene, Mikiki speaks with other drug users about the possibilities of representing the pleasure of substance use beyond the framework of harm.”
• “Lxs dxs bichudas:” dancers Jhoel Zempoalteca and La Jerry “offer 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, which is identification as “mixed-race.”

The Thursday evening event starts at 5:30 p.m. with a reception; continues with a viewing of “Being & Belonging” at 6:30; and ends with a vigil at 7:30 p.m. The Figge Art Museum is at 225 W. 2nd St. in Davenport. The Project of the Quad Cities provide mental and health support services in 40 counties along the Illinois/Iowa border. DeLaCerda House provides housing and advocacy/support services for people living with HIV or AIDS.