From April 2023 to December 2024 I was part of the project called “Aids, archives, and arts assemblies in Belgium” 

I did some sculptural work for the project, and participated in the programming of multiple public and semi-public events including 2 assemblies, some residencies, and public events at the Kaai Theatre. 

We aimed to program two assemblies where we invited HIV+ artists to intimately gather and share spaces, artistic processes, and workshops in self-organization. Through this project, we extracted classic ideas of what art is and defined new ones collectively. While the assemblies themselves became the artwork, I did create a blanket, a sofa, and a few tablecloths as artworks that accompanied us throughout the different events and assemblies we hosted. The community-building aspect woven into each event, gathering, or discussion became a work of art. The idea of making the assembly the piece of art fascinated me and I want to reproduce this in different contexts. The sculptural work I created for the project are remnants of the moments we shared, they are infused with the energy of the various events at which they were present. They are what remains of an otherwise ephemeral project that remains but in our stories. 
 

Participation in this project includes:

Poet and activist aAliy A, Muhammad (Philadelphia, USA), Choreographer Szymon Adamczak (Amsterdam, NL and Warsaw, PL) filmmaker Janos Tedeschi (Amsterdam, NL), visual artist Pascal Lievre Paris, FR), artist and performer Talya (Paris, FR), and visual artist Roberto Tovar (London, UK). Artists living in Belgium I’d like to collaborate with include Tamila Tengo (artist and performer), Castillo (artist, curator, and writer), Matteo Seda (dancer), Marko Bellarte(dancer), Nixie(visual artist and performer, all working on various subjects directly or indirectly concerned with HIV and aids.  Others who participated but wish to remain anonymous are not mentioned here.

We are a group of people collaborating throughout 2023 under the name “Aids, archives, and arts assemblies in Belgium” and alongside the threefold question, “Who is listening, who is missing, and whose aids?” Our project is to host three intimate and self-organized assemblies in 2023, ’24, and ’25 between chosen diversities of people concerned with HIV and aids. The assemblies, with their self-contained audiences, are our artwork of choice, where we share inter-community knowledge, where we self-govern our project. In the past months, we also hosted other events with different audiences: residencies and workshops at Le Delta, erg: école de recherche graphique, and Sint Lucas Antwerpen; and an intimate arts festival by and for people concerned by HIV and aids programmed at La Bellone, which we titled aids, who?

Azahara Ubera Biedma, Castillo, Emmanuel Cortés, Fefa Vila, Héloïse, Joëlle Bacchetta, Marco Labellarte, Marnie Slater, Matteo Sedda, nino_uncut, nixie, Oscar Mathieu le Bussy, Raphaël Kalengayi Junior, Talya, Turi Cantero and others have collaborated in “Aids, archives, and arts...” in 2023.

We aim at devising processes to carry out projects on aids, archives, and arts made by and for people concerned with HIV and aids. We direct this project from our transfagbidyke and queer, poz, feminist, antiracist, materialist, and intersectional community health political agendas. It is coproduced with La Bellone, BUDA Kunstencentrum, Le Delta, erg: école de recherche graphique, Kaaitheater, and Sint Lucas Antwerpen, all of them in Belgium.