Film: Red Reminds Me…

Commemorate World AIDS Day (December 1) by viewing Red Reminds Me…, a program of seven newly commissioned videos reflecting the emotional spectrum of living with HIV today. 

On view in the Hormel LGBTQIA Center on loop from December 1–8, the videos are by Gian Cruz (Philippines), Milko Delgado (Panama), Imani Harrington (USA), David Oscar Harvey (USA), Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar (Argentina/Colombia), Nixie (Belgium) and Vasilios Papapitsios (USA).

Through the red ribbon and other visuals, HIV and AIDS has been long associated with the color red and its connotations—blood, pain, tragedy, and anger. Red Reminds Me… invites viewers to consider a complex range of images and feelings surrounding HIV, from eroticism and intimacy, mothering and kinship, luck and chance, memory and haunting. The commissioned artists deploy parody, melodrama, theater, irony, and horror to build a new vocabulary for representing HIV today.

Presented with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2024. 

Visual AIDS - website
Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.

Artist Biographies

Gian Cruz (he/him) is a Filipino artist, researcher and arts worker. His artistic practice is rooted in photography, art theory and criticism and intersects with cinema, performance and HIV/AIDS activism within Southeast Asian frameworks. He has worked with the National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Korea; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Picto Foundation, Paris; Palais Galliera, Paris; Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris; La Biennale di Venezia; the Japan Foundation; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Bienal de Curitiba; Blackwood Gallery, Toronto; Pride Photo Award, Amsterdam and 4A Centre for Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Juan De La Mar (they/them) is a lawyer, HIV+ activist and artist from Colombia. Their documentary debut, De Gris a POSITHIVO, has won 16 awards and screened at 52 festivals worldwide. They have performed at the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO) and were selected as the 2024 HIV Culture Residency at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito. As an activist, they have worked with the Latin American HIV-Positive Youth Network (J+LAC) and they currently coordinate Bogota's Fast-Track Cities strategy to accelerate the response to HIV/AIDS.

Milko Delgado (he/him) is a transdisciplinary artist whose cultural practice integrates various forms of research and knowledge production, primarily within the realms of visual arts, video, performance, pedagogyand cultural management. Delgado's work explores the intersections between the boy and nature, opening dialogue about identity, coloniality, extraction, health and land. Delgado graduated from the International School of Film and Television – EICTV in Cuba. His work has been exhibited at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá, Teorética (Costa Rica)/Fresh Milk (Barbados), New York Latin American Art Triennial and the Center for Visual Arts (Denver).

Imani Harrington (she/her) is a writer, author and conceptual artist who has documented on the conditions of women since the age of 25. She was an editor for the anthology Positive/Negative: Women of Color and HIV/AIDS: A Collection of Plays (2002) and her play Love & Danger (1995) was among the first to address women and HIV. Her other titles include The Communal Plays and Other Narratives, On Writing I, ISSHOWAT, and House of Leaven.

David Oscar Harvey (he/him) is a psychotherapist and psychoanalysist-in-training, living in Philadelphia. His essay film on HIV criminalization, RED RED RED, has screened at film festivals and art spaces internationally. His writing on identity, HIV/AIDS and film and media have appeared in numerous publications. Harvey is an active member in the artist and activist collective What Would an HIV Doula Do?.

Mariana Iacono (she/her) is a social worker, media activist, and educator who works with networks of people living with HIV in Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean for more than 10 years. She is a co-founder of several HIV organizations in Argentina including Argentine Network of Positive Youth and Adolescents (RAJAP), RAP+30 and Latin American HIV-Positive Youth Network (J+LAC). She currently manages promotion and communication strategy for J+LAC, focusing on feminist issues and building a coalition of young people towards Cairo+20. Iacono’s writing has been published in Volcánicas, Midia Ninja, Vice, Anfibia, Tiempo Argentino, Hoja Blanca and Revista Nómada.

nixie (she/they) is a transfemme HIV+ multimedia artist, writer, and parent, based in Belgium. Her artwork has addressed HIV and genealogy, consent in gay spaces, the joy of parenthood, mourning and the celebration of loss. She works mainly through mediums of text, video, performance, textile and painting.

Vasilios Papapitsios (they/he) is an LA-based writer, filmmaker and artist originally from the South whose work transmutes stigma and trauma with a flair for the fantastical. Vasilios has contributed to projects for MasterClass, AwesomenessTV and Emmy-nominated intersectional media platform OTV - Open Television. They were recognized as a Notable Writer in the 2021 OUTFEST screenwriting lab and as an artivist storyteller in residence with UCLA’s Through Positive Eyes. Vasilios creates very strange, frank and whimsical worlds for us to wander off in, blending genres and blurring boundaries within advocacy, education and entertainment.

Photo caption: Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar, El VIH se enamoró de mi (HIV Fell in Love With Me), 2024. Commissioned by Visual AIDS for Red Reminds Me…