I’ve continued my work with the AIDS Activist History Project (AAHP), slowly wrapping up the transcript indexing project and finalizing the last handful of interviews that have yet to go up online. While the project officially begins to close down since our funding has ended, there are still a number of web features and blog posts in the works before the pages become more static in the coming year. We’re also in the early stages of exploring the possibility of a sex worker history project modelled off of what we’ve learned over the last five years doing oral histories with HIV/AIDS activists in Canada.
Speaking of sex workers… Since gay pride is an irrelevant corporate police state orgy with straight people yelling “HAPPY PRIDE” in your face on every street corner, I’ve been working on something decidedly different. Through volunteering with MAX, Ottawa’s health and well-being organization for guys into guys, I’ve organized a Sex Worker Social and Film Screening as a pre-pride event. On Wednesday, August 15th from 6:30-8:30 we’ll be screening Gwendolyn’s Prowling by Night (1990) and George Stamos’ Our Bodies, Our Business (2016) at SAW Video Media Gallery at 2 Daly Ave in Ottawa. Director Stamos will be joining us in Ottawa for a Q&A and MAX will be providing delicious snacks. The event is free and open to current and former sex workers of all genders, along with their friends, families, and allies. For pride itself, I’ve been working on a special edition set of postcard prints to distribute that attack Canada’s long-held serophobic immigration polices.
In July I also took a full-time position with the Canadian AIDS Society as their new National Programs Coordinator. At CAS I’m collaborating with the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs as well as with a group of doctors working to ensure continued safe access to medical cannabis in Canada in the aftermath of recreational legalization. I also hope to do some digitization and exhibition work with the Canadian AIDS Memorial Quilt that CAS has recently become the caretaker of.
I’ve almost finished with my book review of Avram Finkelstein‘s enthralling visual history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic titled After Silence and got the green light from QED Journal to pair it with a review of the newest publication/exhibition catalog from Visual AIDS titled Cell Count edited by Kyle Croft and Asher Mones. The review should be out late this fall for those that are interested!