By Timothy DuWhite
On March 11th, curators Katherine Cheairs, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr, and Jawanza James Williams of the What Would An HIV Doula Do? (WWHIVDD) collective held their opening reception for Metanoia: Transformation Through AIDS Archives and Activism.
Metanoia is an archival examination of community-based responses to the ongoing AIDS crisis in America. The radical nature of this exhibit lies in its demand of visitors to challenge their own preconceived notions of what the struggle against HIV looks like, and who it is leading this fight. By featuring identities, and narratives not popularly associated with HIV and AIDS activism, Metanoia is thoughtfully shining a spotlight on those too easily forgotten in this epidemic.
Even in the midst of preparing for their closing on Monday, April 29th, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr, and Jawanza James Williams, three out of the four curators of this brilliant exhibit, managed to find time to answer some questions for the Racebaitr audience.
Timothy DuWhite: Thank you all so very much for agreeing to chat with me! I’ll get right to it, tell me about the significance of the title Metanoia.
Jawanza Williams: For us metanoia means the capacity for change. It is a Greek word that the english translation of the biblical ‘repent’ is derived from. To say the least, the way that the Church has used scripture to subjugate Black people, Queer people, and to inform a culture and politic of hatred that’s allowed for the stigmatization of people living with and dying from HIV/AIDS related illnesses is founded on a bastardization of language and context.
I thought of metanoia in the context of an exhibition about women, prison, and HIV because I am committed to reclaiming God with oppressed people, in response to the overwhelming notion and belief that the origin of all things meaningful is White, male, and monied, as in doing so deconstructs the pathological myth.
Alexandra Juhasz: I learned about this word from Jawanza during an early meeting of the curatorial team: a word that reflects humans’ capacity to change, even in and particularly because of the most trying circumstances. For Jawanza, HIV inspired metanoia personally in ways that were evident and exciting. For all four curators, metanoia encompasses how HIV can enter bodies, communities, and societies in ways that challenge and also improve our lives and worlds.
In our show, we see how metanoia works. Joann Walker, an activist featured in the exhibit, experienced and shared metanoia within the California prison system by advocating for the compassionate release of people incarcerated with HIV. As a woman on the inside, she reached out to activists on the outside to bring humanity to an inhumane situation.
Theodore (Ted) Kerr: Kat, Jawanza, Alex and I, as the curators, are part of What Would an HIV Doula Do?, a collective that works to ensure that community plays a vital role in the ongoing AIDS response, and works to root that response in justice. We understand a doula as someone who holds space during times of transition and we know that HIV is a series of transitions, that begin long before someone gets an HIV and last long after someone is on meds or even after we die. As we began to share our definition of doula with people, folks would nod their head and be able to see the role they play as an HIV doula in their own community and life. There is love and power in being able to introduce a word into someone’s life that helps them find the language to describe what they may have always known but never been able to express. I saw that with the word doula, and I am seeing that with metanoia. As an HIV negative person I can say that there is metanoia in HIV for me, and I think for all of humanity. Watching people name and claim the transformational role HIV plays in their life has been rewarding and humbling. The virus is real.
Timothy: I understand that the exhibit focuses primarily on Black women living with HIV who were incarcerated. What is the significance of this decision?
AJ: We decided to focus our archival research on the experiences and activism of Black women and HIV because this approach—a centering of margins full of people and the stories that emerge from there—finds things that have been systematically left under-attended to even as engagement and output was high, mighty, and meaningful. By looking at the most affected, least seen, yet consistently active, we were certain we would fine ideas, voices, approaches, and analyses from which we could all be empowered. Given Black women’s disproportionate experiences of both HIV and prison, we knew there would be material of consequence filed and saved in the name of these struggles.
JW: The consistent through line throughout the exhibition is that HIV creates the conditions for a radical transformation of self and an orientation to calling to task the State, as the connection between pandemic and State violence become clear through one’s lived experience with HIV and/or relationships with those impacted. The same sort of phenomenological experience often happens when folks are imprisoned as well, leading to a socio-political analysis that moves people to action. Add HIV and prison, to the experience of the Black woman in the U.S., and then you have a conversation that gets to the roots of the issues and often radical responses. This is exactly what we found in the Judy Greenspan archives with the story of Joann Walker, confirming our analysis.
TK: I don’t think that we could or would have done the exhibition any other way. I am always baffled when people try and tell a history of HIV and don’t include Katrina Haslip. It was her, along with others like Terry McGovern, who worked to change the government’s definition of AIDS so that it would include women. This saved so many lives and altered the course of the epidemic, and yet Katrina is still largely an unknown figure. To learn more people can start with the film, NOTHING WITHOUT US: The Women Who Will End AIDS by filmmaker Harriet Hirshorn.
Timothy: Could you tell me more about the exhibit? How is it the laid out? What kind of pieces should we expect to see?
TK: Metanoia is displayed over three floors of The Center and was curated from The Center Archive’s holdings, as well as those of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries (ONE Archives). The exhibition starts on the second floor with an exploration of the work women like activist Katrina Haslip did to change the definition of AIDS to include women and others, that finally took effect in 1993. On that floor we also have a portrait series by Lolita Lens of activists working at the intersection of justice, HIV and freedom. On the third floor we focus on the work and legacy of activist Joann Walker, who worked for the compassionate release of women living with HIV and prison, and the overall improvement of treatment for women in prison. This floor includes handwritten letters that Joann wrote to activist, lawyer and educator Judy Greenspan. The top floor, home of The Center’s Archive, is where we have put on view some reflections from us the curators.
AJ: Given Ted’s brief description, I would simply add that the kinds of things you will see fall into a few interesting and perhaps uncommon categories: ephemera from the archive in the form of fliers, newsletters, letters, activist chants, all reproduced in their original sizes and colors; several beautiful posters that we found in the Center’s and ONE’s Archives; the photos of contemporary activists that we commissioned; and a few precious objects we created from all of these collected elements by enlarging items we had found to create emphasis, such as the first photo of Joann Walker that Kat found in Judy Greenspan’s boxes, or several of the chant sheets that held words of wisdom, inspiration, and action that we just didn’t want people to miss.
JW: There are pieces to the show like images from The Fire Inside that remind us of the power and necessity of publications committed to engaging in radical conversation, much like Racebaitr, and that every issue counts because they help us reconstruct a past through nuances that can only be produced by people with direct experiences. Most of the pieces in the show have a unique urgency that still jumps from the text 20-30 years later, with an intimacy that feels interpersonal across time and experience.
Timothy: In what ways is Metanoia contributing to the current conversation around HIV and AIDS being had in our country and across the world? In what ways is this exhibit defying the current conversation?
TK: Something I feel strongly about is the stories we tell in our culture, determine the action we take as a culture. And when it comes to HIV/AIDS, we tell a lot of stories about white gay men ( I say this as a white gay man) and therefore I think a lot of the action we take is around white gay men. So, for me, this exhibition is a meaningful engagement of the question: What happens when we center Black women living with HIV? Do the actions we take change? I think so. I hope so.
AJ: My work as an AIDS activist, artist, and educator has always focused upon the experiences, needs, and actions of women, lesbians, and people of color who have been profoundly impacted in all the decades of this crisis. We have always been part of the conversation, and yet we have always had less access to being heard. Our show puts a spotlight on one small hub of our powerful work, thereby making sure that it stays part of the larger conversation and record, reminding us of the other critical voices and stories yet to be refound and reheard.
JW: We were intentional about making sure even though we produced an archival show using documents from 20-30 years ago, we wanted to make sure we were not suggesting that HIV, let alone AIDS, was over, a relic of a tragic past. So, we commissioned a photographer to add to the archive women doing work today to respond to HIV. The show urges folks to remember the responsibility of the State in responding to the epidemic in the U.S. with an urgency that should not subside until the biological phenomena is checked, but further, that the socio-political, geographic, and economic structures that allows(ed) HIV to persist are corrected.
Timothy: What primary messages do you hope that folks leave with after seeing the exhibit?
JW: What I want most for folks to walk away from the show with is that we don’t have to allow history to remain intangible, and fixed at definitions that dehumanize us, and that despite hundreds of years of a violent White ownership, God, (whether you believe in it or not) the idea, does not belong to anyone, but everyone, and we can use archives, radical imagination, and critical analysis to correct the narratives that shape the human condition to serve everyone, especially Black HIV+ women who are imprisoned.
AJ: I want visitors to the exhibit to understand that humans who are the most impacted by crisis, in its many forms (prison, racism, HIV, sexism, poverty, educational scarcity), have the capacity to change their own circumstances and those of others, through art-making, community, activism, and collaboration: metanoia!
TK: I have had the honor of giving a lot of tours of the exhibitions and I think the number one most meaningful take away has come from people living with HIV who have had to do time in jail. I am glad we have created a culture that provides people with an opportunity to see their history being told.
But also, I should say, the accessibility of exhibitions is limited, so we are debuting the Metanoia NYC Print Guide at the closing event on April 29th, and within a month will launch the Metanoia NYC Online Guide so that more people can learn about this activism that shapes our world.
Don’t miss your chance to check it out!
