“Materials of Survival” Designs For Living With HIV Art Exhibit | SF

Submitted by the Event Organizer

This is the first exhibition of the entire series, Materials of Survival in which artist/photographer, Grahame Perry explores the issues of HIV and long term survival. It’s comes from the personal and communal experiences of being a long term survivor and ties it into the broader ideas of illness, stigma, health and survival. The show grows out of several years of work. Throughout the exhibit, the power of the underlying issues and the struggle to survive are magnified by the scale of the printed images.

In considering loss and employing similar strategies, Perry reconfigures the public examples of deaths from AIDS. Using thousands of obituaries, and panels from the Names Project, he creates two large works, Every AIDS Obituary and Healing Quilt. Perry also uses some images from his other series, “Am I Blue?”, self-portraits that address mourning and fear. Lastly, the exhibit considers the present day and how intimacy, activism, and our vision for the future are being reformulated and reimagined.

Coincidentally, the exhibition will be the first in Magnet SF’s new gallery in the new AIDS Foundation building on Castro Street. Because of the neighborhood’s centrality in the struggle against HIV/AIDS, it is especially important for the artist to have the exhibition occur in the heart of the Castro. Many long-term survivors have called the Castro and San Francisco home. This show attempts to address some of the issues for long-term survivors while also placing it in a location which is relevant for gay men negotiating the issues of sexual health today.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.