Reeferfront Times

CULTURE

37

[COMMUNITY]

Care Package

Contemporary Art Museum’s Day With(out) Art event to focus on AIDS awareness

Written by JENNA JONES

Community and care. Those two words encapsulate what the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (3750 Washington Boulevard) will focus on for its upcoming event Day With(out) Art: Enduring Care on Wednesday, December 1. The event is in conjunction with World AIDS Day, a day of awareness of the AIDS pandemic and the 40th anniversary of the first I diagnosis.

St. Louis was actually home to one of the first I patients. i teen-year-old Robert Rayford died in at ity ospital o cially of pneumonia, but doctors would test his tissue in , si years after the AIDS epidemic began, and find his death as caused by an AIDS-related illness.

CAM is partnering with nonprofit organi ation isual I to host the event. It will begin with a roundtable conversation as a panel discusses the power of community care through activism, cultural organi ing and art.

Charles Long, an artist and activist on the panel, is involved with the group What Would an I oula o It focuses on providing direct service and support to those li ing ith I or I . Long tells the RFT the panel will probably discuss recent events, like the I pandemic, and how community care plays a role.

“We’ve seen communities actually step in and fill the gap here traditional services that are provided by institutions like the government have failed,” Long says. “The importance of community care, not only in these moments, has always been present, particularly around I I acti ism.

Long will be joined on the panel by Lois Conley, host of the Impact I I Initiati e and founder of the riot useum of lack is-

Charles Long, an activist and artist, will be a panelist at the roundtable discussion CAM is hosting. | COURTESY OF CHARLES LONG

tory, as ell as by I educators and advocates Montrelle Day and iyonee ickman, both ith the Community Wellness Project.

A press release details that the program “aims to disrupt the assumption that an epidemic can be solved with pharmaceuticals alone.” The news release instead points to “corrupt leadership within go ernment and non profit organi ations, as ell as broader racial and gender inequities that persist despite scientific ad ances.

The panel discussion will lead to the sho ing of films, commissioned by isual I . ilmmaker Katherine Cheairs will have her short film Voices at the Gate shown at Day With(out) Art. Voices at the Gate was created during the pandemic and throughout challenging personal times for Cheairs and her family. She’s grateful it has come to life and for the isual AIDS members who supported her throughout the making of the film. er film is a collection of archival essays and poems from incarcerated women, many of whom li ed ith I or I . The poems, originally written in the ’90s, are performed by contemporary activists, but the cinematography focuses on the landscape surrounding prisons in rural communities, heairs e plains.

“ Even if people are behind the prison wall, they still have a life — they still have their creativity.

Their voices, their message to the world, reach beyond that.”

“I was always struck by how there was this beautiful countryside,” Cheairs says in an interview with RFT, “and then, you know, just up the hill and over there is this large structure with these large gates and spaces of detention.”

Voices at the Gate focuses on that u taposition of the open land ust ne t to a space here people are confined. he says she ants t. Louisans to be present when they atch the film, to be open to the words and images they’re hearing and seeing.

I made a film that s kind of, in a sense, a meditation,” Cheairs says. “There’s this idea of land as a witness. The idea of a tree as witness that is listening, that it’s hearing a container of stories as well. Even if people are behind the prison all, they still ha e a life they still have their creativity. That their voices, their message to the world, reach beyond that. Because we have, you know, many people who are incarcerated now. That s ust not past it s an ongoing, present e perience.

Both Long and Cheairs are hopeful the panel discussion and films ill help inspire t. ouisans to keep the conversation around I I and community care going. Long says that oftentimes people believe the focal point of activism is on the coasts, but he’s hoping that Day With(out) Art can help St. Louisans feel more connected to the “cross sections of art and community.”

Cheairs wants to remind others that I and I still e ist, and to think about the past where the “vibrant activism” of the ’80s and ’90s was prominent. She points to women I acti ists like atrina aslip and Joanne Walker as inspiration. These omen ere fighting in prison for human rights, for access to I medications, access to health care as a right, not as somebody who was willing to throw their own selves away because the state or the people who put them there thought that that’s where they belonged, heairs says. or these women to actually say, ‘No, I actually am a human being. These are the things that I need. You need to include me into the definition of AIDS. I need support. I need resources. I m going to e pect this prison to actually care for me because I’m a member of the community.’ It’s something we need to be thinking about now.”

Other videos will also be shown, centering mutual aid and collective care. The City of St. Louis epartment of ealth, lanned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, and other organi ations are scheduled to have tables with information at the event.

A Day With(out) Art runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, December 1. Admission is free. Warm drinks and light refreshments are also e pected at the e ent. n