Avram Finkelstein: Workshop

Workshop

January 24, 2014, 9AM-5PM

The Concordia University Community Lecture Series on HIV/AIDS and the Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence (CEREV) present a full day workshop with activist cultural producer Avram Finkelstein.

Following his lecture “Collective Queer Cultural Production, AIDS and the Public Sphere,” presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture on Thursday, Jan. 23, Avram Finkelstein will lead a free workshop on collective production of socially engaged visual art and agitprop. Famous for their appropriation of corporate advertising imagery and deceptively simple messaging (“SILENCE=DEATH”, 1986; “Enjoy AZT”, 1990; “Four Questions”, 1993), the Silence=Death Project played a pivotal role in raising consciousness about the AIDS crisis in the US, and has had a lasting influence on activist art and AIDS art the world over.

Taking our cue from Finkelstein’s lecture on January 23rd, the workshop will explore ways to effectively infiltrate the public sphere with images and statements that critique dominant ideologies, specifically around the issue of HIV criminalization. 16-20 participants will gather in the CEREV Exhibition Lab at Concordia University to discuss the issues, form a collaborative connection through group facilitation, and crucially, create socially engaged messages in the form of digital imagery and text. The resultant image(s) from this collaborative process will be displayed in the courtyard of the FOFA Gallery at 1515 Ste-Catherine St West at 5PM the same day.

The workshop will be co-facilitated by activist/performer Jordan Arseneault (SéroSyndicat/BloodUnion) and artist J’vyln Newfield. Although workshop participants have been invited on the basis of community relevance, academic interest, and digital art literacy, its purpose is to create engaged and reproducible visual statements that speak to the reality and injustice faced by people living with HIV.

Related Event:
The Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA)
The Concordia Department of Art History
and the 2013-2014
Concordia University HIV/AIDS
Community Lecture Series Present:

Lecture:
Avram Finkelstein: Collective Queer 
Cultural Production, AIDS and
the Public Sphere

January 23, 2014, 7pm
The Canadian Center for Architecture 
(Paul-Desmarais Theatre)
1920 Baile Street, Montreal, QC