Unpacking Serophobia, Migration, and Race through HIV Narratives

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We want to talk about aids, migration, and race. We invite you to do it with us in a night of performances and discussions. 

“Aids, archives, and arts assemblies in Belgium” is a two-year project to host two intimate assemblies between people concerned with HIV & aids and impacted by serophobia, as well as public programs. Last year at Kaaistudios, we dedicated a public programme to aids and lesbianism. This year, we end our project with a focus on serophobia, migration, and race. We interrogate how these experiences interact and overlap, using intersectionality as a means to create connections and overcome isolation.  

The night will begin with Salope (Whore), a work in progress by Brussels-based artist Jaouad Alloul, in collaboration with Jeroen Vanluyten for the text and with VNVND for the music. Brussels-based artist Emmanuel Cortés will follow with a cold reading of a new short play on his experience of living with HIV and not disclosing it to his mother.   

The performances will be followed by a debate facilitated by the two artists and by Parisian artist and aids activist Pascal Lièvre. Within the limits of the institutions through which we present this project and performances, we want to create a non-mixed space in a chosen diversity to nurture in-depth and intimate discussions. We will first split into two groups: one of BIPOC and one of white people. The split has been thought out to ease conversations among others who may have an experience closer to your own. This comes from a lack of spaces where oppressed communities can freely exchange without having to shield or hide their ideas, feelings, and opinions. Also, because in white communities, there are variances in power dynamics we may be unaware of. 

We will discuss HIV & aids, seropositivity and seronegativity, migration, race, and serophobia. Who is that visible “well-behaved” “perfect” HIV patient? What exclusions lurk behind the Undetectable=Untransmittable movement? What misconceptions about medical breakthroughs? To come out of the HIV closet, or not? … By the end of the night, we will all get together one last time to continue the discussion. 

The facilitators of the night speak English, Arabic, French, and Spanish; the venue is wheelchair accessible; and its bar will be open for the night. We have reserved half of the seats, free of charge, in priority for BIPOC, migrants, and/or people living with HIV. If you want to book one of those seats, send an email to unpacking2024@proton.me (your email will be read by a HIV+ member of the team of “Aids, archives, and arts…” and will be discarded after the reservations are finished). Everyone else can book a seat in the link dedicated to buy tickets in this page.  

We donated the equivalent of one artist fee to Brussels for Palestine. 

“Aids, archives, and arts assemblies in Belgium” is a project having hosted two intimate assemblies in Kortrijk in 2023 and ’24, self-organized between people concerned with HIV & aids and impacted by serophobia, as well as public programmes. It devises processes to carry out projects on aids, archives, and arts made by and for people concerned with HIV & aids. Castillo, Emmanuel Cortés, and Talya direct this project from their HIV+, transfagbidyke-queer, feminist, antiracist, materialist, harm reductionist, and intersectional community health political agendas.