Description
World AIDS Day / Day With(out) Art 2025: Meet Us Where We’re At…
In collaboration with Visual AIDS* & hosted by Marcelo Alves
On World AIDS Day, we are village holds a special ceremony to unite around issues associated with HIV and AIDS. The event includes creating an altar as a group, holding a small ceremony, followed by Visual AIDS film program.
For the Altar, participants are encouraged to bring anything that deals with the topic of HIV AIDS, illness, recovery and thriving as it relates to the color Red, a theme initiated by Visual AIDS. This altar is meant to express any and all personal experience with HIV and AIDS.
Following the altar we will hold a a few moments of silence as a group to then open the space up for personal reflections. Attendants are highly encouraged to participate in any capacity. Referencing Visual AIDS theme on the color red as a starting point, all voices will be treated equal. Be it loss, grief, anger, activism, indifference, or even historical interest, no voice is to be unheard.
PROGRAMM
• open circle by Marcelo Alves
• Reading performance
• Screening Day With(out) Art 2025: Meet Us Where We’re At…
Kenneth Idongesit Usoro, Voices of Resilience
Hoàng Thái Anh, The Sister’s Journey
Gustavo Vinagre and Vinicius Couto, chempassion
Camilo Tapia Flores, Realce (Highlight)
Camila Flores-Fernández, Ghost in the Park
José Luis Cortés, ¿Por qué tanto dolor? (Why so much pain?)
• Closing
Day With(out) Art 2025: Meet Us Where We’re At…
we are village is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2025 by presenting Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
Meet Us Where We’re At… will feature newly commissioned videos by Kenneth Idongesit Usoro (Nigeria), Hoàng Thái Anh (Vietnam), Gustavo Vinagre & Vinicius Couto (Brazil/Portugal), Camilo Tapia Flores (Chile/Brazil), Camila Flores-Fernández (Peru/Germany), and José Luis Cortés (Puerto Rico)
Commissioned videos by artists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany, and Vietnam journey across a range of spaces revealing the complexity of drug use. Several videos document the visible world of drugs—a harm reduction program in a Berlin park, a night out during Rio’s Carnival—while others reveal private, often hidden spaces where safety is found: bedrooms, underground clinics, and moments of connection between lovers.
Meet Us Where We’re At… speaks not only to the variety of physical locations where contemporary harm reduction is practiced, but also to a broader shift: centering drug users as authors of their own experiences. Rooted in the philosophy of meeting people at their personal reality without judgment, the program affirms the full context of drug use—its pleasures, its risks, and its role in how people survive, care, and connect.
Harm reduction has long been central to the AIDS movement through practices like needle exchange and safe injection sites, and people who use drugs have been affected by HIV since the earliest days of the epidemic. This program brings their perspectives to the forefront, amplifying the voices of drug users as storytellers, cultural producers, and essential participants in the global response to HIV.
** 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.
