The Wellcome Trust and Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) invite you to ‘AIDSTRAVAGANZA - AIDS, Art and Activism - We Are Still Not Silent!’
23.07.19 - 7-11pm at Partisan Collective, 19 Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, M4 4FY - www.partisancollective.net. Tickets are Free
The Wellcome Trust and Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and healthcare movements across Manchester host a night to remember! The line-up includes incredible artists, activists, cabaret performers and speakers to usher in the new generation of ACT UP art and inspire us to take to the streets until there is an HIV / AIDS Cure for all. With a film screening of ‘United in Anger’ and a panel of HIV activists and artists exploring the key issues to fulfill the mission of ‘until there is a cure for all’ including Stop the privatisation of the NHS, fighting for PREP for all and Fight AIDS not Migrants
About ‘AIDStravaganza’
During the ‘first silence’ in the 80s, ACT UP was famous for its strong artistic component. Art collective Gran Fury took on the role of ACT UP’s unofficial propaganda machine, employing and subverting brand advertising techniques to build a powerful visual presence in the fight against AIDS. Keith Haring’s pop art and graffiti art has come to visually define central aspects of that period, and continues to be employed today in radical actions around HIV/AIDS.
We live in different times and today we are faced with different emergencies. While the AIDS crisis in the USA during the 1980s meant that the reality of death was ever-present, HIV is considered, at least in the ‘west’, a ‘life sentence’ rather than a death sentence. In different parts of the world, this is a very different story. Today in the UK the National Health Service (NHS) is being sold off to the highest bidder and access to ARVs and other HIV services is extremely unequally distributed. Pharmaceutical companies reap giant profits from limiting access to drugs, and states reap giant ideological benefits from the class, race, gender, and sexuality borders that exploitation of the virus creates.
The contemporary emergency that we face now is a ‘second silence’ created by this global neoliberal mandate, decimating services at home and abroad, entrenching discrimination, hierarchy, and stigma. HIV infection rates are on the increase, and access to vital treatments obstructed by corporate greed.
So we are doing a CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS from all artists out there with a passion for HIV justice and anger towards the governments and institutions that use HIV to promote racism, homophobia, sexism, and classism.
The submissions will be featured in the ACT UP zine, raising awareness through art about the Second Silence and the impact of the current political and economic situation on HIV prevention and cure.
Our closing date for submissions is December 1st 2019, World AIDS Day. The winners and runners up will have their designs made into the official ACT UP merch!!!! Runners up will also have their designs featured in ACTUP merch. ALL submissions will be featured in ACT UP’s zine, online and offline, and on ACT UP badges.
All interest, design applications and press requests please @ actuplondonfighttilltheend@gmail.com /- all info at www.actuplondon.wordpress.com
ACT UP London is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the HIV pandemic, along with the broader inequalities and injustices that perpetuate it. Get your tickets here!