Queer Archives: Art&Advocacy

From the VISUAL AIDS website: "Visual AIDS
utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue,
supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy,
because AIDS is not over."

We will focus on art, artists and practices in
the subject of archives, advocacy, and the AIDS
crisis. Using research techniques including oral,
digital, and written histories and archives, this
class will center the work of the organization
Visual AIDS and its rich (digital) archive, The
Registry that features HIV+ artists (living and
artists who have crossed over.) We will visit the
Los Angeles ONE ARCHIVE (field trip) and explore
other archives such as the SCHOMBURG CENTER that
centers POC artists/activists' work. We will
engage with the work and ethics of the collective,
What Would An HIV Doula Do (WWHIVDD) as well as
the rich written texts from the 1980's Other
Countries collective.

The seminar will include weekly illustrated
presentations, bi-weekly readings and written
assignments, and at least two guest speakers-
including at least one artist who is in the
registry and a visit from a queer
archivist/writer/librarian. Students will delve
into the Visual AIDS archive via past/present
periods, histories/politics, explore
form/metier/interest, and review and create
guest-curated galleries.

Student discover(ies) will be based on their own
metier(s) and experimentation as a way to explore
the Visual AIDS archive (alongside other
organizations/artists-activists as mentioned
above). Projects include a mid-term project
focused on citational practice and
inter-generational oral history development and a
final project further developed into an
experimental curatorial project resulting in
writing plus an artwork and/or a curated digital
gallery.