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Visual AIDS invites artists and filmmakers to submit proposals for new video works evoking the emotional experience of living with HIV. Videos will premiere on December 1, 2024 at over 150 venues worldwide as part of Day With(out) Art / World AIDS Day.
Up to six selected artists will receive a $3,000 honorarium to produce a short video work (6–8 minutes).
Proposals will be reviewed by a jury including Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad, Jessica Whitbread, Alper Turan, and Josué Lopez.
How to Apply
To apply, please submit a 250 word video proposal, a personal statement, and work sample through the Google Form below. (A Google account is required to apply.)
Deadline Extended: Sunday, July 9, 11:59PM EDT
Theme: Mixed Feelings
Images of grief, tragedy, and anger—photographs of impassioned protests and distressed friends gathered around hospital beds—saturate the public imagination around HIV. These visuals, many dating back to the 1980s, often reinforce narratives that HIV is a historical issue or that to live with AIDS is a death sentence. While these images are inseparable from the history of the pandemic, what is less often discussed, represented, and magnified in public are the emotional nuances of living with HIV today. There is no singular narrative of HIV/AIDS, and people that are living with HIV—long term survivors and people who are newly diagnosed—share a complex range of emotions and experiences that are not seen or represented at the larger cultural level.
For Day With(out) Art 2024, we are accepting proposals that evoke the range of emotions that accompany HIV. The jury will select six proposals that together speak to a wide spectrum of feelings, from surprise and sadness to anger, fear, love, and joy. We welcome proposals that represent the nuances, complexities, and contradictions of living with HIV. Possible directions include stories that:
Highlight acceptance, community, or new relationships formed by living with HIV
Express an unexpected intimacy with the virus or a new relationship with one’s body or outlook on life
Confront shame, guilt, or regret as it is distinct to HIV, e.g. survivors guilt and victim blaming
Explore long term surviving—how one’s relationship with HIV changes over time
Utilize humor, satire, absurdity, irony
Delve deeper into loss, grief, mourning, memory
Reignite anger, rage, action and resituate AIDS as a contemporary political issue
Deal with the mundane, routine, or ordinary aspects of living with chronic illness over time
Consider how emotional responses to the AIDS crisis are shaped by media, activism, and government.
We are seeking new images and stories that expand, envelop, and present HIV beyond its traditional framing. Proposals need not be limited to the above topics but should speak to a set of emotions related to living with HIV with complexity and depth. We want to see the individual experiences of people living with HIV honored as sacred in their uniqueness.
Eligibility
We welcome proposals from both emerging and established artists in a range of forms, including documentary, narrative, and experimental. Collaborative proposals are also welcome.
Anyone may submit a proposal, regardless of geographic location or HIV status. Artists and filmmakers who are living with HIV are encouraged to apply.
Proposals should be submitted in English but may be translated with Google Translate or ChatGPT prior to submission. This year we are offering a Spanish language application page, but request that all materials be provided in both Spanish and English.
Commissioned videos may be in any language. Visual AIDS will work with artists to produce English subtitles. Applicants should be aware that communication with Visual AIDS during the commission process will require some use of English, though we are happy to utilize translation tools over email and Zoom.
Criteria
Proposals will be reviewed by a jury including artists/activists Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad and Jessica Whitbread, curator Alper Turan, and community organizer Josué Lopez. Jurors will evaluate proposals based on the following criteria:
Thematic relevance: Does this encourage reflection or provoke conversation around the themes outlined above?
Strength as artwork: Can you visualize the video as proposed? Does it seem like a compelling artwork?
Past work: Does the work sample and proposal suggest that the artist will be able to execute their proposed project as described and on schedule?
Timeline
DEADLINE: Sunday, July 9, 11:59PM EDT
All applicants will be notified by September 2023
Commissioned videos must be delivered by July 1, 2024. Artists will be expected to independently manage the production of their work while incorporating feedback from Visual AIDS staff throughout the process.
Videos will premiere at over 100 venues worldwide on December 1, 2024 to mark Day With(out) Art / World AIDS Day. After December 1, commissioned videos will be made available for free online viewing at video.visualaids.org.
Questions
If you have any questions about the application process, please email Blake Paskal, Artist Engagement and Community Programs Manager at bpaskal@visualaids.org and Kyle Croft, Programs Director at kcroft@visualaids.org.
About Visual AIDS Video Commissions
Visual AIDS has organized Day With(out) Art every year since 1989, coordinating art museums, galleries, and nonprofits across the world to present programs in response to the AIDS crisis.
Since 2014, Visual AIDS has commissioned short videos from artists and activists to be distributed and screened at venues worldwide on December 1, World AIDS Day. An archive of videos commissioned by Visual AIDS is available at video.visualaids.org.
Past Day With(out) Art projects have featured video works by Thomas Allen Harris, Camila Arce, Lyle Ashton Harris, Shanti Avirgan, Mykki Blanco, Jorge Bordello, Katherine Cheairs, Gevi Dimitrakopoulou, Cheryl Dunye, Lucía Egaña Rojas, Rhys Ernst, Glen Fogel, Carl George, Cristóbal Guerra, Jim Hodges, Jim Hubbard, Las Indetectables, Tom Kalin, Danny Kilbride, Clifford Prince King, Kia LaBeija, Carol Leigh / Scarlot Harlot, Luna Luis Ortiz, Ray Navarro, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Mikiki, My Barbarian, Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad and Uriah Bussey, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Beto Pérez, Brontez Purnell, Viva Ruiz, Mark S. King, Ira Sachs, Iman Shervington, Charan Singh, Ellen Spiro, George Stanley Nsamba, Nelson Sullivan, Steed Taylor, J Triangular and the Women's Video Support Project, Justin B. Terry-Smith, Julie Tolentino, Tourmaline, Jack Waters and Victor F.M. Torres, James Wentzy, and Derrick Woods-Morrow.
* Note: Information about the video program for Day With(out) Art 2023 has been announced here. This call for proposals is for Day With(out) Art 2024.