IV Embrace: On Caregiving & Creativity

Artists and activists Joy Episalla, Rafael Sánchez and Lodz Joseph discussed the role of caring and caregivers throughout the ongoing AIDS crisis from an artist and doula perspective. Moderated by Ted Kerr, IV Embrace: On Caregiving & Creativity showed the personal experiences from both sides of the caregiving process: giving and receiving care. In conjunction with the exhibition In The Power of Your Care, the event highlighted artworks in the exhibition by Hunter Reynolds and Frank Moore as well as works by Hugh Steers and Kathleen White, among others.

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES

Joy Episalla is a New York-based artist working in photography, video and sculpture. She has exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1980s. Last year, Episalla had a solo exhibition at Participant Inc. in New York and her work was featured in Greater New York 2015 at MoMA/PS1. She is a founding member of the queer art collective fierce pussy. A longtime AIDS activist, Episalla was a member of ACT UP, and currently serves on the board of TAG Treatment Action Group and the Gesso Foundation-- founded by the artist Frank Moore. Close friends, she cared for Moore during the last years of his life until his death on 21 April 2002. Her work, as well as Moore's, is featured in the Art AIDS America traveling exhibition, opening at the Bronx Museum on July 13.

Lodz Joseph has a Masters in Public Health and is currently at Midwifery School at Columbia University. She recently completed her Bachelors in Nursing at Columbia. She has done both birth and HIV work both locally and globally. Lodz is a native New Yorker born and raised in Queens, first generation American whose parents are from Haiti. While not at births and studying she loves being on the beach, writing and hanging out with her dog, Wendell. She is a member of the What Would An HIV Doula Do collective.

Theodore Kerr is a Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based writer and organizer whose work focuses on HIV/AIDS. He earned his Masters at Union Theological Seminary where he researched Christian ethics and HIV. He was the programs manager at Visual AIDS. He is a member of the What Would An HIV Doula collective?

Rafael Sánchez is an artist living in New York City. He has had a rich collaborative creative alliance with his partner Kathleen White and Hunter Reynolds, all of whom have lost and cared for friends to AIDS. In the spirit of community, Rafael and Kathleen created alLuPiNiT (the new york city environ mental magazine) in 2008. alLuPiNiT Vol. 5 Hunter Reynolds, Survival AIDS coincided with Hunter’s 2011 show of the same title at Participant Inc. It was around that time that Kathleen offered to help Hunter adhere to his meds by checking in with him by phone daily, which Hunter eventually incorporated into his artistic practice with his work "Medication Reminder." In the summer of 2013, just weeks after Visual AIDS’ Not Over exhibition, which included installations by both Hunter and Rafael, Kathleen was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. It was an incredibly tragic year but they loved and cared for each other and continued to be artists through all of it. Kathleen passed away on September 2, 2014. It was the day after her last show had closed.

What Would An HIV Doula Do? is a collective of artists, activists, writers, doulas, chaplains, health care workers, and others invested and active in the ongoing community response to HIV/AIDS, bridging strategies from the past, present and into the future. HIVdoula.tumblr.com