Help SPOKE collect 500 Stories of Stigma, Reflection, and Remembrance for their 32nd Annual World AIDS Day 12-Hour Vigil @ The Boston Center for The Arts on December 1st.
This year, SPOKE is organizing a workshop called “I Spoke to End HIV.” The intimate stories of remembrance, caretaking, community building, and art-making as an act of healing, resiliency, honoring, remembering, and grieving. The call to action here is to fight the Stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, Grief, and the Stigma associated with any condition. The second purpose of this project is to honor and remember individuals no longer with us whom we loved.
SPOKE is collecting 500 stories for their 32nd Annual World AIDS Day Commemorative event, which includes a Mindfulness and Remembrance Walk from City Hall Boston on Friday, December 1st, @ 11:00 a.m. over at City Hall Plaza to arrive at the Cyclorama (Boston Center for The Arts) by noon, where their 12-hr Vigil and art exhibition will take place. During the 12-hour Vigil, SPOKE will mark each hour of the day with artistic offerings, rituals, prayers, and performances in honor of those we remember with a theme on Stigma.
The workshop is designed for participants to work on an art form (a marbleized house-shaped panel) that will carry a self-image or an image of a loved one we wish to honor and remember on one side. In contrast, on the other side, we write a story or anecdote associated with the Stigma we have experienced, whether it is associated with HIV or any Stigma. If I honor and remember someone, I will write an anecdote, story, or prayer to celebrate that person.
SPOKE asks you to submit a photo and a digital story that they will then transcribe into the marbleized house-shaped panel to be part of their World AIDS Day Exhibition,” A Day Without Art,” at the Boston Cyclorama.
Massachusetts, Fenway Health, and partnering organizations as we launch Getting to Zero Week 2023, an initiative working to recognize and bring together efforts led across the state of Massachusetts to end the HIV epidemic and serve as a Call to Action to activate the next generation of HIV and AIDS activists.
How to Participate:
- Submit a selfie and a story about how you have experienced Stigma
- Submit a photo of a loved one you wish to honor and remember and a story, anecdote, or prayer
- If you choose to participate, SPOKE asks that you complete their organization’s media release form
- Email it to [email protected] – Subject: “I spoke to END HIV”.
For more information or if you have any questions regarding SPOKE’s World AIDS Day event/I SPOKE to End HIV workshop, reach out to Raymond Rodriguez at [email protected]
DECEMBER 1 – 8, 2023
Getting To Zero Week
Join Getting to Zero Massachusetts, Fenway Health, and partnering organizations as we launch Getting to Zero Week 2023, an initiative working to recognize and bring together efforts led across the state of Massachusetts to end the HIV epidemic and serve as a Call to Action to activate the next generation of HIV and AIDS activists.