ALTERNATE ENDINGS, ACTIVIST RISINGS: MCA Chicago Screening and Discussion

The Chicago premiere screening of Day With(out) Art 2018 ALTERNATE ENDINGS, ACTIVIST RISINGS at the MCA Chicago was followed by a panel with Coleman Goode (AIDS Foundation of Chicago), Mary Patten (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and Pamela Sneed (Visual AIDS Board Member), moderated by Visual AIDS Programs Director Alex Fialho.

Coleman Goode is originally from Texas where he studied Music Education at Texas Tech University before moving to Illinois in 2002. He is Manager of Community Organizing at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and prior to joining AFC, Coleman was the Chief of Staff for Illinois State Representative Greg Harris. He brings 8 years of policy work experience, and has developed a passion for helping marginalized communities including but not limited to communities of color, LGBTQ+, sex workers and homeless youth achieve full health equity. Coleman also brings to his work the shared experience of homelessness, living with mental illness and recovery from substance abuse. He has been living with HIV since 2006 and seeks to build institutions that not only recognize Black humanity, but maximizes the individual and collective liberties of Black people.

Mary Patten is an artist, activist, and writer. She was one of the founding members of ACT UP Chicago, after early AIDS activism with CFAR (Chicago for AIDS Rights) and DAGMAR (Dykes and Gay Men Against Reagan, Repression, the Right Wing...) She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the departments of Film, Video, New Media and Animation and Visual / Critical Studies.

Pamela Sneed is a poet and multi-disciplinary artist and online faculty at SAIC’s low-res program and Visiting Artist. She also teaches at Columbia School of the Arts. Sneed provides the introductory voice-over for Day With(out) Art and is a long time activist. She is a Visual AIDS board member.

Alex Fialho, as Programs Director at Visual AIDS, facilitates projects around both the history and immediacy of the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, with particular stakes intervening against the widespread whitewashing of HIV/AIDS cultural narratives. He is a Brooklyn-based independent curator and arts writer, frequent contributor to Artforum, and an Interviewer for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic Oral History Project.

Commissioned Organizations:

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) NY (New York, NY) is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals, united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. ACT UP was formed in 1987 in response to social neglect, government negligence and the complacency of the medical establishment during the 1980s. Soon it found itself needing to fight corporate greed, lack of solidarity and various forms of stigma and discrimination at home and abroad. ACT UP fights for: sustained investment in research for new medicines and treatments for HIV/AIDS and related co-infections; equitable access to prevention and care for HIV/AIDS and healthcare, in general; tackling the structural drivers of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, such as stigma, discrimination and poverty.

Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN) is a national membership body of women living with HIV and allies that exists to strengthen the strategic power of all women living with HIV in the United States. Founded in 2008 by 28 diverse women leaders living with HIV, PWN-USA develops a leadership pipeline and policy agenda that applies a gender lens to the domestic HIV epidemic grounded in social justice and human rights. Every day, PWN-USA inspires, informs and mobilizes women living with HIV to advocate for changes that improve lives and uphold rights.

Sero Project is a national network of people with HIV and allies fighting for freedom from stigma and injustice. Sero is particularly focused on ending inappropriate criminal prosecutions of people with HIV, including for non-disclosure of their HIV status, potential or perceived HIV exposure or HIV transmission. Sero co-produces the biennial HIV is Not a Crime conference, which provides advocates from across the country with training on strategies and best practices for repealing laws that criminalize people living with HIV.

Safe Place Over Time (The SPOT) (Jackson, MS) is dedicated to providing services and opportunities for wellness, empowerment, and leadership to young men in Jackson, Mississippi. The program aims to improve health outcomes and reduce new cases of HIV among African Americans who are disproportionately affected by the epidemic. The SPOT strives to be a safe place for young men to openly discuss issues and challenges and to work to improve their quality of life and to promote the concept of self-worth. The SPOT is housed in the Jackson Medical Mall, a former shopping mall that now provides healthcare for the underserved and promotes economic and community development.

Tacoma Action Collective (Tacoma, WA) is a partnership of Black community organizers working in grassroots action and education in Washington State. TAC works to to eliminate systemic oppression and structural violence while empowering the people to build autonomous communities rooted in equity and justice. In 2015, the collective staged a die-in at the Tacoma Art Museum in response to the white-washing of the exhibition Art, AIDS, America.

VOCAL (Voices Of Community Activists & Leaders) (New York, NY) is a statewide grassroots membership organization that builds power among low-income people affected by HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, the drug war, homelessness, and mass incarceration in order to create healthy and just communities. VOCAL accomplishes this through community organizing, leadership development, public education, direct services, participatory research and direct action.