Day With(out) Art 2023: Everyone I Know Is Sick

For Day With(out) Art 2023, Visual AIDS presents Everyone I Know Is Sick, five videos generating connections between HIV and other forms of illness and disability.

The program features newly commissioned short videos by artists working across the world:

Dorothy Cheung (Hong Kong)
Hiura Fernandes & Lili Nascimento (Brazil)
Beau Gomez (Canada/Philippines)
Dolissa Medina & Ananias P. Soria (USA)
Kurt Weston (USA)

Inspired by a statement from Cyrée Jarelle Johnson in the book Black Futures, Everyone I Know Is Sick examines how our society excludes disabled and sick people by upholding a false dichotomy of health and sickness. Inviting us to understand disability as a common experience rather than an exception to the norm, the program highlights a range of experiences spanning HIV, COVID, mental health, and aging. The commissioned artists foreground the knowledge and expertise of disabled and sick people in a world still grappling with multiple ongoing pandemics.

The artists in this year’s program were selected through an open-call process juried by writer Kimberly Drew and artists Marguerite Van Cook, Charan Singh, and Pato Hebert.

The hour-long video program will premiere at over 100 museums, galleries, and arts organizations on/around December 1, 2023, World AIDS Day.

Stop by the Stonewall Center on December 1 to view the piece in-person; the videos will also be available to view online at visualaids.org/dwa2023 beginning December 1, 2023.