4 . 12 . 24

Some news: I am no longer working for Visual AIDS.

This was not my decision. I am very sad to leave an organization that has felt like home to me for so long, especially like this, with no reason attached except for the word "budget." After years of attending programming & volunteering after my own diagnosis nearly 7 years ago, I was very proud to find myself actually on the books working for an organization with such a rich & storied history of disruption, agitation, & support for HIV+ artists both living & not. My first Day With(out) Art screening opened me up to a whole new network of ancestry & kinship that I so desperately needed. I am endlessly grateful for the relationships I've built with other HIV+ artists across the world--through this work I have built a family & I love that family fiercely. You know who you are (if you think even in the slightest way I am talking about you, I promise you I am). In my time at VA, my two largest responsibilities--directing the oral history project, The Body As An Archive, and managing the Artist Support Grant program, which disburses $55,000 in unrestricted cash funds to HIV+ artists globally--were rooted in providing tangible, emotional, & material support for people living with HIV. This was a joy & a blessing & a charge I never took lightly, even in the most difficult moments. I was proud, ultimately, to be the only staff member in the organization with first-hand knowledge of what it means to live with this virus in my body. Informed by both the history of HIV in this country & abroad & also the current, ever-changing global landscape that this virus traverses, I felt uniquely equipped to engage my kin with empathy, compassion, & care. In short, I felt that what I was doing mattered & that it mattered that I was the one to do it. It is for this reason mostly that I'm saddened to be leaving Visual AIDS behind, when I feel I still have so much work to do. I want to be clear that I am not here to disparage them--in fact (of course) I want them to succeed--but I will say I am ultimately disappointed.

For the past six months & counting, we have been witnessing the willful, calculated mass extermination of over 30,000 Palestinian people at the hands of settler-colonists fully supported by our own government. Both historic & contemporary HIV/AIDS movements remind me that SILENCE = DEATH, & as a dear friend/coworker so emphatically puts it, "avoidable mass death anywhere is an affront to life everywhere." It has been deeply disturbing to me these past six months that the VA staff's every attempt to open a discussion with our Board about how we might respond internally to this moment & what, if anything, we could do to support our community members for whom these atrocities hit very close to home was not only flat-out refused but met with vitriol & disrespect. What's more, it is deeply disturbing that a man caught encouraging people to drive through a gathering of peaceful protestors sat on that very Board & would likely continue to do so had he not been caught. It is, ultimately, indescribably disturbing to realize that this experience is perhaps not at all unique in the NYC art world, so invested as it is with cultural & material capital that it favors profit & good connections over integrity & compassion.

I have learned these past seven years that HIV is both a great equalizer & a formidable nexus. It is a virus that affects all of us. It does not care who you are, it could find you just as easily as anyone else. By which I mean, HIV is a sexual health concern yes, but also a concern exacerbated by racism, sexism, transphobia, class & wealth disparity; it concerns drug users & sex workers & homeless people by which I mean it concerns yr neighbors by which I mean it also concerns you, whether you like it or not. I cannot muster any faith in an art world that only cares about HIV if it is profitable to them; I have nothing whatsoever in common with blue chip dealers & collectors & gallery owners who, even if they are living with the virus in their bodies as well, simply do not have to consider their illness with the same urgency if they have the luxuries of money & time on their side. I felt this discrepancy most vividly while presenting the fruits of my collaborative labor & the intimate recordings of the oral history project on the stage of the Whitney Museum of American Art, generating ever more cultural capital for VA while I myself openly recognized being uninsured by the very HIV advocacy organization asking me to take that stage in the first place.

With a new Executive Director at the helm, Visual AIDS has the opportunity to exercise its agility to meet this current moment & answer the calls of community members & sister organizations to take both a principled stance & discernible action in an equitable direction. Whether they make good on that potential or not remains to be seen, but I trust & I hope that VA will move forward while more consciously considering the lived realities of their HIV+ community members & meeting them with dignity & respect. In short, I trust & I hope for better from VA as an organization, for the sake of those still here & those still not alike. I have said many times before that "you would never be so angry if you didn't care so much." I am angry. I care deeply. These two things are both true.

To my Artist Member family--I love you most of all. Don't ever hesitate to reach out to me, for any reason whatsoever. I am yours & there is a room in my heart that no one else can enter. Always & all ways.

xxC.

***All photos above courtesy of Douglas Rogerson, “Spare Parts,” 2024***