Gather in dialogue, creative expression, and community building for Day With(out) Art. Starting at 10:00 am, a selection of short video works commissioned by Visual AIDS will be presented on a loop at CAM for drop-in viewing in a dedicated screening space until 7:00 pm. At 5:00 pm, a culminating event features a community conversation, a special screening, and a response wall to gather reflections about the films and HIV/AIDS. A portion of the AIDS Memorial quilt will also be on view. 

Day With(out) Art is a national program that originated in 1989 on World AIDS Day as a celebration of the lives and achievements of lost artists and colleagues. With participation from hundreds of organizations, Day With(out) Art encourages ongoing efforts to de-stigmatize and find a cure for HIV by showing care for those living with a positive status. 

Schedule

• 5:00 pm Galleries open; complimentary snacks and drinks available for purchase
• 5:30 pm Welcome comments from Lawrence Hudson-Lewis (Director of Prevention, Project ARK) and screening of seeds in a dying colony
• 6:30 pm Q&A

Video Synopses

Edgar Hudson Mdendu, There is an Elephant in the Room (Tanzania)

A young person flees home after a life-altering discovery, carrying the weight of things that cannot be said out loud. He encounters an activist fighting to be heard and a care worker sustaining others through daily acts of survival. Through dance and movement, the film offers a quiet story of survival, exile, and return, asking what it takes to face the elephant that everyone knows is there.

Bruna Kury and Matheus Mello, Viral Borders: Geopolitics of a Pandemic (Brazil/Spain)

A visual manifesto that transforms the HIV virus into a mirror of empire, where data, propaganda, and flesh collide. Through a frenetic digital collage, the film exposes the biopolitical machinery that controls the body and weaponizes borders against life itself.

Sido Lansari, Forevermore (Morocco/France)

Forevermore weaves together archival echoes, poetic fragments, and testimonies of Arab queer lives touched by HIV, spanning generations and geographies. Through the voices of the dead and the living, the film transforms silenced histories into a collective act of remembrance and resistance.

Micaela Cyrino, How to project your voice without causing an earthquake (Brazil)

Carolina lives alone in an apartment on the outskirts of São Paulo. Every morning she faces the city’s frenetic pace during the long commute from her home to work. In her thoughts, her grandmother’s wisdom always returns; in her headphones, it’s always the same rap. In her bag, she carries the book of recipes, baths, and blessings she inherited from her grandmother and the desire to end the day well.

Response Wall 

The response wall provides prompts for reflection and conversation around the videos and broader conversations of HIV/AIDS. Questions include:

• How are some people’s health and lives protected while others are ignored? How do artists make this visible?
• What do traditions offer to people facing hardship or stigma?
• These artists come from Tanzania, Brazil, Spain, Morocco, and France–what do you know or want to know about experiences from our community in St. Louis?