AIDS/ART/WORK

The AIDS/ART/WORK conference presented by Visual AIDS, CLAGS and Dr Paul Sendziuk, was held at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, on 30 May 2008. An enthralled audience of approximately one hundred people heard fourteen presentations that explored the past, present and future of AIDS art, activism and prevention, and the connections between them. The conference promised to examine the sometimes uneasy but often productive relationship between art inspired by AIDS and HIV/AIDS prevention, and it delivered.

The organizers of AIDS/ART/WORK intended the conference to serve as a starting point for continuing dialogue between artists, activists, and workers engaged in health promotion and HIV prevention. They were thrilled to see a strong contingent of workers from Gay Men's Health Crisis in attendance, as well as university professors, graduate students, journalists, archivists, curators and artists, among others, who traveled from different parts of the United States and the world.

An outline of the key themes and questions raised at the conference can be found here. It is hoped that debate about these questions will continue via Visual AIDS's blog. You can also access biographies of the conference speakers and selected abstracts of their presentations, view photographs taken during the event, and listen to the papers that were presented.

A follow-up conference was held in Australia in February 2010.

AIDS/ART/WORK was co-convened by Dr Paul Sendziuk, School of History and Politics, The University of Adelaide; A/Prof. Sarah E. Chinn, Director of CLAGS; and Amy Sadao, Director of Visual AIDS.

The convenors gratefully acknowledge the organizational contributions of Nelson Santos, Assistant Director at Visual AIDS; Naveed Alam, CLAGS events co-ordinator; Alyssa Nitchun; and Katrina Stats, who took the photographs.

Generous support for AIDS/ART/WORK was provided by:
Australian Research Council
The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
The Graduate Center Office for Research and Sponsored Programs
The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation
Peter Norton Family Foundation