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VIRAL Collective
VIRAL is a group of artists and activists based in Portugal, a collaboration between the dragtivist Paula Lovely, the artist Teresa Fabião, and Luca Er Baghetta Modesti, from the collective White Rabbits - ARTivists against Serophobia.
Watch #HIVISIBLE - 2GETHER video here.
@PaulaLovelyGorgeous is a dragtivist willing to restore centrality to HIV+ bodies.
In 2017, she started a political and performative path of self-determination that started with “Fuck me I'm Poz” at the Festival Anormales, went on with “Facing Taboo, a Drag Novel” - a sero-proud show performed with Conigli Bianchi that debuted at International AIDS Society conference in Amsterdam in 2018 - and culminates with the creation of the series “A proudly POZ revolution”. In 2019 she was Grand Marshal of the 20th LGBTI + Pride March in Lisbon and the protagonist of the film “Un giorno felice” by Francesco Tavoloni. She believes that liberation movements born from individual creations can grow, express themselves and make sense only when they transform and branch out allowing other voices and stories to come to light.
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Teresa Fabião is a dancer, artivist and researcher in dance. Master's degree in Dance and PhD in Performing Arts. She received several grants and performed/ taught in Portugal, Brazil, Spain and Italy. Member of the International Community of Women Living with HIV. She collaborates on a regular basis with Seres, the only association in Portugal for women living with HIV. Winner of the European Union support ´Eramus for Young Entreperneurs´, with a project of inclusion and holistic health through expressive arts/dance, directed to the HIV community. Together with Paolo Gorgoni, she created VIRAL a collective engaged with using the arts to create a space for empowerment and to break the silence and stigmas around people living with hiv. Her mission is to reconnect people with the knowledge of their bodies and their creative expression. Teresa believes in dance as a practice of social transformation.
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Luca Modesti, aka Er Baghetta, is an hiv+ activist founder of Conigli Bianchi (The White Rabbits - Artivists against Serophobia), a cartoonist author of the viral webcomic “BePositive” and Art Director of feminist and underground comics festivals.
#HIVisible - 2gether
Action dedicated to -and performed by- People Living with HIV on World AIDS Day 2020.
#HIVisible was born in Lisbon as the act of foundation of the collective VIRAL, a platform of HIV+ artists and activists devoted to restoring the centrality of HIV+ bodies and experiences in the collective imagery. It soon turned into a transnational movement enhancing the visibility of People Living with HIV around the globe, with contributions from Italy, Uk and Brazil.
Most of the narrative around AIDS in the media is stuck to the attractiveness of drama, pain, loss, and death, but rarely depicts the beauty of resilient bodies and experiences in the present: no campaign will ever take the stigma off our shoulders if we keep having our lives told by others. #HIVisible - 2gether, episode 2 of the tetralogy “A proudly POZ revolution”, is about individual blossoms gathering into an unrestrainable spring.
It is about the scar we left by cutting the silence apart.