Visual AIDS’ 2019 Day With(out) Art - Still Beginning: A response to the ongoing HIV epidemic featuring Sian Green

In the summer of 2019, IWES staff created a short film entitled i’m still me for Visual AIDS’ 2019 Day With(out) Art series, Still Beginning. i’m still me profiles the experiences and activism of Sian Green, an African American woman living with HIV that is a member of IWES’ HIV Testing & Prevention program’s Community Advisory Board as well as a Peer Advocate. In the film, Sian speaks about what it is like for her as a Black woman living with HIV in the South and the stigma she has encountered, and how she has overcome the negativity and shame by becoming an activist and cultivating a community of women living with HIV that she created through in-person and virtual meet-ups and gatherings. It also features commentary from our very own HIV Testing & Prevention Director, Angelita Brown, about the trajectory of the epidemic and its impact on African American women in particular.

Kolin N. Mendez / Kolin Mendez Photography for the Brooklyn Museum

As a part of Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art program, the film premiered on December 1 in honor of World AIDS Day 2019 at a marquee screening at the Whitney Museum. It was also watched at over 100 screenings in 25 states and over 15 countries on World AIDS Day and in the subsequent weeks. IWES staff member and i’m still me filmmaker, Iman Shervington, participated in two panel discussions to discuss the film and its themes following the screenings in Los Angeles at the Museum of Contemporary Art (December 5) and New York at the Brooklyn Museum (December 7). The film was one of a set of seven short films reflecting on the ongoing epidemic, which therefore garnered a wide audience due to the diversity of the filmmakers and their subject matters. This provided for a rich discussion that reflected on the history of the epidemic and trailblazers in the fight for rights, recognition and treatment for folks living with HIV, especially those from minority backgrounds, and spanned the current state of the epidemic and the future of the work to end the epidemic. Other films in the curated series include Derrick Woods-Morrow’s Much handled things are always soft, Shanti Avirgan’s Beat Goes On, Carl George’s The Lie, Viva Ruiz’s Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution, Jack Waters and Victor F.M. Torres’ (Eye, Virus), and Nguyen Tan Hoang’s I Remember Dancing. The films are now available on Visual AIDS’ website and can be found here.

For questions about i’m still me or for screening information please contact Iman Shervington at iman@iwesnola.org. For questions about IWES’ HIV Testing & Prevention program or to inquire about free, confidential HIV testing, please contact Angelita Brown at abrown@iwesnola.org.