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Featured image: Drew Wilby
This December, Manchester Pride’s arts strand is hosting a whole weekend of artistic activities to mark World AIDS Day: Superbia’s Day With(out) Art Manchester.
Begun in 1988, World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day. Its creation was designed to raise awareness and activism in the fight against HIV and HIV stigma, and to celebrate the many lives lost to AIDS-related illness. Day With(out) Art is an international project that celebrates 30 years of artistic interventions this year.
The Superbia team has curated the diverse Day With(out) Art Manchester programme to take place across Greater Manchester, and joins approximately 8,000 international events taking place on Sunday 1 December.
The first Day With(out) Art Manchester was initiated in 2017 with a performance from poet Gerry Potter and disco nights hosted by Drunk At Vogue. The full line-up includes:
Saturday 30 November
‘To Whom it May Concern’ by Jordan Roberts
5pm–11pm, Cotton Club, Oldham Street
The event is free and no booking is required.
With the vision of raising awareness and conversation around HIV and AIDS, Jordan is curating a whole afternoon and evening of events in a single location. Guests to this spectacular event can expect: an exhibition of portraits taken by Jordan, a collection of letters written by people living with HIV and performed live, video art, a live talk from Jordan himself, a diverse panel event of people living in Manchester with HIV, a flash-mob performance and local charity stalls who support people with HIV.
Guests can then dance the night away with a star-studded performance from Drag SOS saviour Cheddar Gorgeous and Anna Phylactic AND a live DJ set from Manchester’s very own RebeccaNeverBecky.
Sunday 1 December
On the Sunday, Manchester’s most exciting new venue CULTUREPLEX, on Ducie Street, will host two one-off events:
Still Beginning
4pm, CULTUREPLEX, Ducie Street
Free, booking essential
Still Beginning will be a screening of seven newly commissioned videos from Visual AIDS in New York that respond to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. With work by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, and Derrick Woods-Morrow.
The films cover subjects from anti-stigma work to public sex culture, highlighting pioneering activism and staging intergenerational conversations. The films aim to resist narratives of resolution or conclusion, considering the continued urgency of contemporary HIV/AIDS while revisiting resonant cultural histories.
The evening will be introduced by Greg Thorpe of Superbia with time for conversation and reflection afterwards.
Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilises art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.
In 1989, Visual AIDS organised the first Day With(out) Art, a call to the art world for mourning and action in response to the AIDS crisis. Over 100 institutions worldwide will screen Still Beginning.
Reading the Epidemic
6.30pm, CULTUREPLEX, Ducie Street
Free, Booking Essential
To mark World AIDS Day 2019, a collection of special guests will read aloud selections from diverse writing on HIV and AIDS. Bringing together memoir, poetry, educational literature, personal reflection, fiction, journalism and more, this will be a way to share, remember and inspire through the written and the spoken word.
The evening will be hosted by Greg Thorpe of Superbia, with time for conversation and reflection afterwards.
About the Day With(out) Art
2019 is the 30th anniversary of Day With(out) Art, the annual project started by Visual AIDS New York which uses the power of art to turn attention to HIV and AIDS on World AIDS Day. Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilises art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.
Beginning as Day Without Art in 1989 to mark the enormous losses to the art world due to deaths from AIDS, and to spur people to action to fight HIV and AIDS, the event was rechristened Day With(out) Art to nurture a shift towards supporting the work of artists living with HIV.
Since 2017 Superbia at Manchester Pride has hosted Day with(out) Art Manchester. With artists and venues we’ve programmed screenings, readings, interventions, new commissions and conversations focussing on HIV/AIDS, art and activism, past and present. Here are our events for Day With(out) Art 2019 Manchester:
About Superbia
Superbia supports, curates, funds and celebrates LGBT+ life across Greater Manchester all year round, to encourage engagement and well-being, and to reflect and culturally enhance LGBT+ life.
For more information, please visit superbia.org.uk.
