Visual AIDS project ALTERNATE ENDINGS series will be shown in the LGBT Center, showcasing seven artists and perspectives around HIV/AIDS issues.
It’s been more than 30 years since the first reports of HIV/AIDS were found in California and New York.
The LGBT Center intends to honor the history behind the disease and its impact on LGBT individuals through a showing of Visual AIDS’s latest project, ALTERNATE ENDINGS. The activist group commissioned seven short films focused on the lives of seven artists or collectives and their perspectives around HIV/AIDS issues. The films will be screened during World AIDS Day.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system to a dangerous level, and AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is the final stage of HIV which causes severe damage to the immune system.
HIV/AIDS made an enormous impact on LGBT-identified individuals starting in the 80s, especially on gay men, as the virus was, at one point, called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) and caused a historical uproar around LGBT issues and rights as it was one of leading causes of death among young men.
However, Alex Fialho, programs manager for Visual AIDS, said the problem with awareness around HIV/AIDS is that because there is not much urgency around the issue, people forget that it still has an impact.
“The AIDS crisis is not at the level of urgency that it was when the organization was founded, which is not to say that it’s not important, it’s just a very different disease because of medical advances,” Fialho said. “People with HIV or AIDS live a lot longer but that doesn’t mean that questions like stigma or societal problems around the disease still aren’t there.”
Visual AIDS supports HIV-positive artists and uses art to start a discussion to fight the disease. One of the group’s biggest programs is “A Day Without Art” where museums were shut down in order to help AIDS efforts, especially in museums featuring work of artists who had died due to AIDS complications.
The program, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is now called “A Day With(out) Art,” a change that occurred in 1998 accompanying a switch in direction for the day.
“Instead of encouraging institutions to shut down to acknowledge the loss, we decided it was more effective if we did cultural programming around these questions,” Fialho said.
Fialho worked with Delfin Bautista, director of OU’s LGBT Center, to screen ALTERNATE ENDINGS as a part of World AIDS Day and “A Day With(out) Art.” Bautista said the center was originally going to screen the film Rent but once the opportunity to show ALTERNATE ENDINGS arose, Bautista said it would be a great opportunity and also a way to prompt discussion about safe sex and health.
“We need to talk about it ... in terms of our history,” Bautista said. “There is a whole generation of people who aren’t here and that needs to be recognized.”
As the series of films will focus on the present and future of AIDS, as opposed to just a historic perspective, Fialho said he hopes college students will pay attention and hopefully make an impact on the world around them.
“There’s definitely a lot happening that still needs to be addressed. In a college context, it might even be the first time these questions are raised for students … but these are very real questions that should still be considered,” Fialho said. “And if this is the first time or an early exposure to these questions, that’s exciting for us because we think it’s important that it’s still there.”
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