A program by Perdu and Club Church on HIV/AIDS, activism and art.

Through four presentations, departing from specific geographic contexts (Germany, Poland, the Netherlands) the program engages with past and current battles, personal experiences, historical and current developments of HIV/AIDS oriented forms of activist and artistic (re)presentation.

Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the mid-eighties, writers, activists and cultural laborers at large have served as a united front; raising awareness, demanding and igniting action. The crisis, largely constituted by governmental neglect, brought with it a condemnation of the LGBT community. Where politics, law and policy failed, activism and art picked up, charging one of the most effective sociopolitical movements of the 20th century.

Today, nearly four decades later, the scope of the crisis has changed. So has its discourse, the strands of work demanding our attention, as well as the role of art. Perdu and Club Church have invited three artists and a collective, whose work contributes to raising awareness to HIV/AIDS.

Two years ago Szymon Adamczak found himself entering a stream of voices caring for HIV in the present. On this he writes "Each young queer is, in fact, an amateur anthropologist fishing bits and pieces out of normative rivers to make up their own little current." In his artist talk Szymon will reflect on developing a performance and writing practice in the proximity of the virus in the "undetectable” era. He will speak about influencing the reception of HIV-related art in Poland, autoimmune gestures and the flat dramaturgy of life.

Philipp Gufler has been a member of the Archive forum for homosexuality Munich since 2013. One of several works which engages with his studies there is the video installation Projection on the crisis (Gauweilereien in München). In this work, Gufler deals with the 1980s and the catalogue of measures against AIDS devised by the Bavarian government at the time. As an accompaniment to the screening, Philipp will also read one chapter from his book Indirect Contact (2017). In this book historic figures and contemporaries of Gufler are allowed to meet outside the boundaries of chronological order. In the process of indirect writing, Gufler repeatedly seems to merge with his characters.

The programme will be sequenced together by three videos by House of Hopelezz (Amsterdam's oldest drag house) which were directed by Taka Taka, the creative director of Club Church. Sexual Revolution, a lesson by Jennifer Hopelezz, Together....sisters and Our house is a family function as both a vision statement for House of Hopelezz and simultaneously comment on the political landscape, the sexual revolution and behaving productions.

Stefan Silvestri is part of the graphic designers duo gebr.silvestri in Amsterdam, who are also responsible for the graphic design of Club Church. In his presentation engagement and the visual language in times of HIV and AIDS he will look at, and speak about the many years they have been working in HIV and AIDS activism, by the means of visual campaigns and projects.

Anne Rodermond, manager of Club Church, will briefly introduce Club Church and how it “transcends the traditional boundaries of fetish subculture”.

*The title of this event is derived from the poem THE THEME IS DURATION by activist, writer and artist Gregg Bordowitz.

Taka Taka identifies as a professional drag-thing who produces performances for House of Hopelezz, the oldest drag house in the Netherlands founded by Jennifer Hopelezz. In Amsterdam, he organizes weekly queer parties at Club Church and para-educational strategies for the marginal LGBTQA community, including political and gender asylum seekers, friends with the virus, misfits and party monsters.

Szymon Adamczak (1991) is a Polish artist, writer and dramaturg, working with theatre and performance, based in Amsterdam. He studied art history and philosophy at the University of Poznań and is an alumni of DAS Theatre. He advocates for ambiguity, sincerity and poetry in proposing projects as means of reflection on the complexity of contemporary living. His recent performance „An Ongoing Song” takes a form of physically and visually conceived duet in order to tackle a relationship of a body with a human immunodeficiency virus.

Philipp Gufler (1989, Germany) is based in Amsterdam and since 2013 a member of the grassroots archive forum homosexualität münchen. Gufler is a former resident of De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2015 - 2017) and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (2019), USA. He works with performance, text, video installation and silkscreen prints. Gufler studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Hfg in Karlsruhe. Recent solo exhibitions include “Love and Ethnology“ at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019), Maskulinitäten“ at Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2019) and "Paranoid House" at Vleeshal, Middelburg (2018).

Stefan Silvestri (Switzerland, 1960), based in Amsterdam sinds 1983 and part of graphic designers duo gebr.silvestri, Amsterdam. They have been working for many years in activism related to the disease with HIV and AIDS. gebr.silvestri designed for different projects on visual campaigns, safe sex communication for Safe sex Guerillas, Pin-up Project, Saunaproject for Schorerstichting / Deutsche Aidshilfe / AK Kontiki Schweiz.They are co-founders of ‘Nietslikken' Amsterdam and part of the editorial board of the magazine Hello Gorgeous, a non-profit glossy magazine about living with HIV. Recent work is the exhibition ‘Problem gelöst? Geschichte(n) eines Virus - Problem solved? Stories of a virus, Shedhalle Zurich.

Anne Rodermond studied fashion design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy from 1997 till 2002. Rodermond had his own studio for 15 years under his name, from where he worked as a sculpture artist. He had lived in Morocco, Berlin, and Barcelona. He works for Club Church since 2011 where he started as a cloakroom boy. In 2016 he became the manager and programmer at Club Church. Rodermond is an actively involved activist in the LGBTQ community to support emancipation and sexual freedom and health. He works together with HIV advocacy groups such as the AIDS fund, GGD, Common health service Amsterdam. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, PrPEnu and Prepster Londen.