“In the ’80s we were talking about gay people, but we were talking about White gay people.”
This line from the documentary short DiAna’s Hair Ego REMIX (dir. Cheryl Dunye and Ellen Spiro, 2017) encapsulates the mission of last Friday’s World AIDS Day event at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. UMMA was one of hundreds of museums nationwide presenting ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS, a program of seven video artworks curated by Visual AIDS, an arts nonprofit now entering its 30th year of supporting HIV+ artists.
Featured films ranged from traditional narrative and documentary shorts to experimental video artworks. The event centered Black experiences of HIV/AIDS and queer and trans life through its directors’ intimate projects.
Two films from the event stood out in particular for their aesthetic distinctiveness. Atlantic is a Sea of Bones (dir. Reina Gossett, 2017) envelops its audience in swirling soapy water and colored lights as a drag queen reflects on her past from atop the Whitney Museum balcony. The short ruminates on Black queerness and its history (particularly in New York City), much like The Labyrinth 1.0 (dir. Tiona Nekkia McClodden, 2017), which uses assorted 16mm same-sex pornographic footage shot in bathrooms during the ’70s.
Featured together, these seven films screened at UMMA help reimagine what it means to be Black and living with HIV/AIDS today.
