LOADED is a collaborative multi-media arts project exploring the public’s relationship to HIV and AIDS in the 21st Century. The current ambition is to develop the project over a period of 18 months culminating in a multi-media site specific performance.
Inspired equally by my STIGMA project developed in collaboration with HIV Scotland as part of the #GenerationZero campaign and a moment when I cut myself at work and was asked by a colleague if they should be worried about my blood, this project seeks to spark conversations and debate around the changing face of HIV through the showcasing of the highest calibre creative output.
The project has four strands, each informing the next:
- Visual arts (stage 1)
- Curatorial notes and essays (stage 2)
- Exhibition (stage 3)
- Live performance (stage 4)
THE ORIGIN
Since late 2021, I have been developing a collaborative practice with models and authors to experiment in the creation of paintings made using my own bodily fluids (and that of the some models) as well as more conventional materials. Originally inspired by the weaponisation of the queer man’s blood and semen through the AIDS crisis, my visual work has in the past taken inspiration from other queer artists, sometimes bastardising their sketches, sometimes creating collages of their work, but always incorporating my blood into the images.
In December 2021, I departed from this style creating my first semi-traditional portrait LEWIS/SONTAG: Dec 21 (in blood, urine, semen, sharpie, charcoal, pencil, PrEP). It’s a portrait of queer theorist Lewis Wood that incorporates a passage from Susan Sontag’s essay ‘The Pornographic Imagination’. All the usual material aspects from my past works are there, but I wanted to represent that fact that advances in healthcare mean that semen is no longer seen as taboo (in the danger sense at least). To reflect this, the portrait is sealed in glitter (inspired by CA Conrad’s Glitter in My Wounds) made from crushed up PrEP (a pre-exposure prophylaxis that protects you from HIV infection when taken properly).
I gifted this to my boyfriend at the time because I am really romantic like that. It did however spark an incredible series of conversations with his friends and academic peers which inspired me to play around with the format. Since the creation of that first piece in this style, I have created 13 other draft portraits each exploring aspects of HIV in the 21st Century.
These include:
- A portrait of a gay men who enjoy having sex without condoms that incorporates text from the academic Tim Dean’s Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections of the Subculture of Barebacking.
- A portrait of the first baby born through artificial insemination to an HIV positive donor using the sperm washing process.
- A portrait of a PHD student specialising on the migration of HIV through Europe and the Levant incorporating a paragraph of Christopher Coe’s Such Times.
- A portrait of activist and playwright Larry Kramer incorporating his essay 1112 and Counting from The Native
- A self portrait featuring a monologue from my play Jock Tamson’s Bairns
- A portrait of Hanya Yanagihara incorporating text from her latest novel To Paradise
- A portrait exploring S&M incorporating Gail Rubin’s essay The Catacombs
All of these portraits were created as draft experiments, and where the author of the materials is still alive I approached them for approval for inclusion retrospectively – but with great success, each sharing the work on their social media channels. This in turn led to my first fully informed collaboration with writer Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and the adult film star Joel Someone. The result being JOEL/GREENWELL: Mar 22 (in blood, cum, sharpie, piss, glitter, PrEP) which is in many ways, our queer response to Tracey Emin’s ‘I Am The Last of My Kind’.
WHAT NEXT?
I’m currently looking for partnership support and investment to:
- progress each of the existing pieces to exhibition standard
- research viable subject/collaborators for the creation of a further 16 pieces and ensure that the diversity of the HIV experience is represented while building partnerships with the HIV sector, and venue programmers/producers
- work with an essayist in the creation of 4 different long form essays on the subjects raised. It’s hoped that these essays will inform the creation of the theatre piece (stage 4), be used as provocations at panel discussions/debates to promote the final project and of course inspire the curatorial aspects of the exhibition (stage 3).
If you’d like to chat more about this, I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can email me on barry@wearecivildisobedience.com
BCW 