A Day With(Out) Art 2017

NYU Tisch School of the Arts is proud to support Day With(out) Art, Friday, December 1, 2017. Presented by Visual AIDS and curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett, the video program ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS looks to prioritize Black narratives within the ongoing AIDS epidemic.

At Tisch, the film will loop continuously from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on screens throughout the school.

Visual AIDS commissioned seven artists— Mykki Blanco, Cheryl Dunye with Ellen Spiro, Reina Gosset, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia Labeija, Tiona McClodden and Brontez Purnell — to create short videos about the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. This is the 28th iteration of Visual AIDS’ longstanding Day With(out) Art project. 

In spite of the impact of HIV/AIDS within Black communities, these stories and experiences are constantly excluded from larger artistic and historical narratives. In 2016 African Americans represented 44% of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States. Given this context, it is increasingly urgent to feature a myriad of stories that consider and represent the lives of those housed within this statistic. ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS seeks to highlight the voices of those that are marginalized within broader Black communities nationwide, including queer and trans folks.

The commissioned projects range from intimate meditations of a young HIV positive protagonist, to a contemporary re-imagining of 90s-era “safer sex” media culture, to a musical journey through New York exploring historical traces of queer and trans life, to accounts from formerly incarcerated women living with HIV/AIDS in the Bay Area. Together, the videos provide a platform centering voices deeply impacted by the ongoing epidemic.

Learn more about the artists / curators from their bios and updates on our planned 2017 Day With(out) programming