DISSIDENT POLITICS: A PUBLIC WORKSHOP ON LATINX HIV/AIDS HISTORIES

DISSIDENT POLITICS: A PUBLIC WORKSHOP ON LATINX HIV/AIDS HISTORIES was the first event of Mexico City-based Eugenio Echeverría's Visual AIDS / Residency Unlimited Curatorial Residency.

For the workshop, Eugenio and the group read a number of facts in chronological order from Mexico, Cuba, Chile, and the United States relating to HIV/AIDS. From there, participants were asked to consider the proposed information in order to set up a personal narrative about the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis, particularly as it effects Latinx communities. This process informed Eugenio's AIDS TIMELINE: FEARLESS LATIN/X AMÉRICA display, on view April 29 through May 14, 2017 at El Museo del Barrio as the concluding project of his Curatorial Residency.

HIV/AIDS histories can be told in very different ways and with radically different meanings. What story am I telling? Do I believe in it? Why do certain facts get prioritized over others? How do I relate to the facts included and excluded? Through interaction and dialogue, workshop participants discussed the inclusion or dismissal of facts, considering their own criteria and developing the stakes of their own HIV/AIDS narrative.

Dissident narratives focused on identity as it relates to links within community; distribution of violence from public policies, science and media; and the correlation between United States necolonialism and the response from Latin-American countries to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

DISSIDENT POLITICS: A WORKSHOP ON LATINX HIV/AIDS HISTORIES was co-presented in collaboration with Residency Unlimited and The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center.

The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, often called The Clemente, is a Puerto Rican/Latino cultural center named after Puerto Rican writer and activist Clemente Soto Vélez. The Clemente, which was formed in 1993, is located on Suffolk Street in the former PS 160 in Manhattan's historic Lower East Side neighborhood of Loisaida.

Eugenio Echeverría lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico, where he is the founder and director of Border Cultural Center. Since 2006, Border Cultural Center has coordinated over 100 interdisciplinary exhibitions and site-specific interventions. Highlights include QUEER UP! (DYKES, FAGS, WEIRDOS & YOU), a 12 month program of residencies, seminars, exhibitions and more considering LGBTQI identities, in collaboration with Laos Salazar; MULTIVERSO TRANS, a four day conference on trans identities conceptualized in collaboration with artists and trans activists focusing on violence, sex work, access to healthcare, legislative reforms and the autonomy of trans individuals, including LO QUE SE VE NO SE PREGUNTA the first Mexican exhibition on trans identities, curated with Tania Pomar, Susana Vargas and Laos Salaza; and the upcoming project HACKING THE CITY, fostering discussion on civil disobedience in urban contexts, directed by Edith Medina.

Launched in 2012, Visual AIDS and Residency Unlimited (RU) together host a one-month residency program for a curator, art historian, or arts writer interested in the intersection of visual art and HIV/AIDS. The curatorial residency encourages the development of exhibitions, programs, and scholarship about HIV/AIDS and contemporary art. The resident curator conducts research in Visual AIDS' archives with access to slides, digital images, publications and other resources. The archives hold over 17,000 digital and slide images by over 600 artists living with HIV and the estates of artists who have passed away.