Interview With Ankh Association

ANKH Association on July 14, 2019

TL: A mutual friend and queer activist in Cairo was helping me find a place to stay in Paris only a few days before my trip. I somehow end up sleeping on your couch in the suburbs of Paris.

You two make the Ankh Association that supports LGBTQQI and HIV+ folks in the Middle East through an arts advocacy campaign. Can I ask, how you got here? Back in Paris and making Ankh?

ANKH: First things first, Nicolas is a French activist who has been involved for many years in various collectives defending minorities’ rights in France (LGBTIQ, women, migrants, etc.) while working in cultural cooperation between France and the Middle-East. Taha is Egyptian and has also actively been involved in the Human Rights field in his country, both as an activist and on a professional level. We met a few years ago in Egypt, where we were both involved in the local LGBTIQ community. By the end of 2016, due to different circumstances, we also began to be more involved with the HIV+ community, witnessing the numerous challenges and difficulties that one might have in Egypt in order to access testing, treatment, and especially dealing with religious and social stigmatization. For instance, we realized that there was almost no center where one can go to get tested, and the few existing places are being closed by the government. Now the only places where you can get tested are in government-run facilities, which are already in a very small number. Regarding the treatment, you also need to go to the government to be allowed to have access to it, which usually takes months, you never get to know the results of your test, sometimes the medicine is not available for weeks, or they change it without telling you… Of course not mentioning the way that HIV+ people are being treated by doctors and nurses, which most of the time results in them avoiding going to hospitals or doctors at all.

So when we came to France in early 2018, we started thinking about how to help change the situation there, so we decided to make an NGO that will be able to both support HIV+ and LGBTIQ people in Egypt, as well as to advocate and educate on matters related to sexual health, sexual orientation and gender identity, human rights, etc. This is why we established the ANKH association, and the first thing that we worked on was a sexual health campaign called ‘Know More’.

TL: The Know More campaign is online, and the byproduct is a traveling show called Points of Life for which you already have shows in Lyon and Grenoble lined up and 10 participating artists. How does it work? And, what is your goal … what will the viewing public understand after attending one of your events. Is there something you want them to know (or do) about HIV conditions in the region?

ANKH: We started the Know More campaign as an online Facebook page in Arabic, French and English, aiming to raise awareness in the Arab-speaking communities about sexual health issues, and HIV was, of course, a very big part of it.

In order to reach a different audience in Europe and to make more people aware of the challenges that HIV+ people in the Middle-East are facing, we decided to make an art exhibition based on testimonies by people living with HIV in Egypt that will be showed in various European cities.

So we had an open call out for 2 months asking people who are living with HIV in Egypt to send us artworks expressing their personal experiences, either through a small video, voice recording, photo, or text… We ended up receiving up to 8 pieces, from people of different ages, locations, and genders, each depicting how these people manage to live with HIV in their country.

We thought that setting up an art exhibition as a part of an advocacy campaign is a really effective way to reach people, as it is based on direct testimonies, thus creating a direct connection with the audience, through very simple art forms like mobile videos, photos, or recordings that are accessible to anyone.

TL: OK, then what if another city wants to have the Points of Life exhibition. Would you take it anywhere or do you prefer that it be received in a specific way (locations) whereby your overall strategy is advanced?

ANKH: We will be more than happy to see Points of Life being exhibited in various cities around the world! The whole point of the project is about encounters and sharing experiences, especially with different kinds of audiences. One thing that we are focusing on is for the exhibition to be shown in very different types of places, sometimes LGBTIQ centres, or art spaces, community centres, etc… Our technical requirements are really basic so it’s really easy to make it travel from one place to another. Also, the exhibition is usually introduced with a small speech about the situation of people living with HIV in Egypt, but we also like to have it linked with a more entertaining event like a movie screening, food, concert, party… Everything is possible, depending on the place where it is organized!

______________

To learn more:

Know More Campaign: https://www.facebook.com/know.more.campaign
Ankh Association: https://www.ankhfrance.org/

Why Make an ‘Open Work’?

Todd Lester on July 11, 2019

I launched Luv ’til it Hurts, a long-considered project on HIV and stigma in July 2018. The project goes through the middle of 2020 officially, and yet I’m also quite interested in the afterlife of projects. DURATION is important to me for reasons I’ll explain later, and based on specific methods drawn from the community organizing field. Luv ’til it Hurts follows a five-year project on the right to the city, site-specific to the center of São Paulo called Lanchonete.org and a ten-year project, freeDimensional on free expression and artist safety (and shelter) in pre-existing artist residencies around the world. Given that an afterlife is expected and having experimented with different forms of archiving (or the project reporting on itself) with both freeDimensional and Lanchonete.org, Luv ’til it Hurts attempts to externalize a ‘record’ of the two-year process in various ways, such as the project’s website as ‘scrapbook’… and even an annual report. 

From ‘Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers’ (2010)

In my work, there are often elements of institutional critique woven into the project design. I don’t care to always point to them, but too this series of three multi-stakeholder, durational, rights-focused projects are intended as a form of action research and therefore patently ‘open’ to independent investigation and interrogation. I myself ‘ask’ the projects as questions. They now span almost 20 years, a period in which I’ve also been in dialogue with other artists and observed various forms of practice in both the art and human rights ‘worlds’. At this point I find that I am considering methodology. As a method, I ‘network’ my projects in particular ways, through personal artist connections and through thematic or ‘field’ institutional approaches. It comes as second nature to me and perhaps is therefore easier to do than it is to explain. I decided to wait until after the 3rd and final project (in the series), Luv ’til it Hurts is finished before doing a ‘deep dive’ on methodological issues in this same twenty year period. That work (or book) already has a name, which is Variations on Worldmaking.

At the same time, the 3rd project (for which this site is eponymous) is the most personal of the three. I am HIV+. So while freeDimensional and Lanchonete.org may give me an edge on framing such durational, multi-stakeholder, rights-focused projects as Luv ’til it Hurts, the subject matter of HIV and stigma affects (infects) me wholly. 

Each process has had a phase of inviting stakeholders. Given that this is typically the most intense period within the overall ‘durational’ process, I can now say that a longer break between the second and third project was deserved. Lanchonete.org did not ‘stop on a dime’ and so the beginning of Luv ’til it Hurts overlaps the second project, just as it has overlapped the first project, freeDimensional.  While a project can gain stakeholders throughout (and I might argue even after the end of its designated timeframe), the first participants to join are needed for contiguous growth and the most time is spent with these stakeholders (and usually in discussion over project design). They then repeat this process with new stakeholders if they so choose. I typically open and ‘hold’ the process. It can sometimes feel like the role of artistic director and is quite lonely at first. But, after a few more principal stakeholders are on board it is possible to co-lead while also doing other individual and group ‘actions’.

From ‘Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers’ (2010)

Regarding Luv ’til it Hurts—and en brev—I will hold the process (ultimately an open design method that includes finding money to make the project); write for the website in a couple of ‘threads’—about the process of making the project and some creative texts; co-curate public programs (conferences, exhibitions, residencies, etc); introduce an independent work (or action) within the ‘container’ as would be the prerogative of any serious stakeholder; and ultimately archive the project through its end-date and a short period thereafter. One needs to want to ‘use’ the device to participate … it is not a theoretical project in that ‘sideline’ sense, even if I may consider it a form of research (something I’ll explain later). I am told that I can be a toughie during the recruitment phase, encouraging people off the sideline in smooth and not-so-smooth ways. It is critical no matter how you ‘crack it’ this particularly tedious and essential part of the process. 

Once the container is secure (and explainable) in act two, a larger range of actions are possible. Luv ’til it Hurts is completing its first act I do believe. I will say so here when the process is clear of each of its milestones. 

Such a project can be tiring at times for sure. I make open works because they excite me. And, nourish me at times as well. 

###

[*The phrase ‘open work’ is a reference to Umberto Eco’s criticism on such works throughout history, The Open Work, Harvard University Press (April 1989), shared nicely online by Monoskop.]


House of Zion Debut at Luv ‘Til It Hurts Launch

Luv 'til it Hurts on June 8, 2019

[*Before Pony Zion took part in Cidade Queer and Luv ’til it Hurts, I had the opportunity to attend one of his workshops in Lecce, Italy. xot]

In his own words, Pony Zion describes his motivation for sharing his dance performance and choreography on the occasion of Luv ’til it Hurts‘ NYC launch:


“This is one of those extremely special moments in time when we get to connect in artistic communication and celebrate one another through the expression within our gifts and on top of important platforms that were  built to Lead, Learn and Love. Together, let’s explore our imagination, share our minds and live by our talents by engaging in our Luv ‘TIL it Hurts.”


Pony Zion is a father, dancer, choreographer, performer, creative director and Icon of the House of Zion. He started the House of Zion in NYC and helped open its first chapter in São Paulo, Brazil. Pony has starred in various videos and films, including Lanes (2015) and Vogue Theory (2015) that discusses the impact of Voguing on NYC youth, and is the founder of Vogue Revolution.  

House of Zion

Luv ‘Til It Hurts: the Launch

Brad Walrond on April 29, 2019

Luv ‘Til It Hurts was formally launched October 27, 2018 at the historic LGBTQ Center in New York City. In keeping with Luv ‘til it Hurts stated mission, 

‘’to be a porous container, it aspires to ‘hold’ people together 

long enough for essential introductions and exchange ideas’’

for me at the time of this writing, April 2019 it has already been a ravishing success. I launched Every Where Alien [my arts culture and content producing brand and company] in January 2019. My first project is in the form of a narrative documentary and requires travel to São Paulo. I’m thrilled Luv ‘Til It Hurts, found Every Where Alien’s project worthy of support. 

I am equally thrilled by how this journey with Luv ‘Til It Hurts has placed me proximal to several astonishing artists and HIV/AIDS activists from around the world. In September by the time I walked into Kairon Liu’s New York Humans as Hosts solo photography exhibition I understood. This experience, for me, had to be more than a fiscal exchange. Kai is brave and brilliant. His art is breathtaking and layered and provocative. I was here to learn, to hear, to witness, and to breathe. 

Simply put I would not have met Kai were it not for Luv ‘Til It Hurts. Quite likely neither would I have met Malaya Lakas, Philip Miner, Theodore Kerr —each all, in their own right, gifted and prodigious HIV/AIDS activists, administrators and artists.

Mine and Pony Zion’s trip to Brazil in January 2019 gave occasion for me to deepen my relationships and collaboration with the truly legendary artivist innovators  Flip Couto of Festa AMEM and Félix Pimenta of the House of Zion in Brazil.  I had the honor to work with the unmitigated genius of Coletivo Coloteres in capturing the footage as the two-week residency in São Paulo unfolded. And of course I got to witness firsthand the life and work of Luv ‘Til It Hurts’ founder Todd Lester. 

In the course of doing this work to research and write this poem chronicling Luv ‘Til It Hurts Launch I’ve been gifted with new friendships, inspired by world-class art and activism, and the prospect of vanguard globe-spanning collaborations. 

And for me, as an often reluctant and sometimes burnt out longtime HIV/AIDS activist perhaps the greatest surprise is to realize, even now after all these years, there is so much this pandemic and its survivors and activists have to teach us about but what it can plausibly mean to be human beings, and how we might co-create freer safer more vital societies for our kin—even when either ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, are faced with withering stigma, economic injustice, health and healthcare access disparities, and yet still the prospect of dying too soon. 

On the night of October 27, 2018 Pony Zion opened the Luv ‘Til It Hurts launch with a group dance performance performed to a song he wrote and produced. Flip Couto and Festa Amem and Félix Pimenta shared a video about their work and travels. I shared a poem chronicling 30 years of black queer art activist organizing and the House Ballroom Scene in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in New York City. Pony and I shared a bit about our then forthcoming Luv ‘Til it Hurts and #houselivesmatter supported residency in São Paulo. We joined our co-presenters Malaya, Phillip, Theodore (Ted) and the panel began curated and co-facilitated by Kairon Liu and Todd Lanier Lester.

To write this poem I interviewed, in the course of six months, the principal contributors to the panel at the Luv ‘Til It Hurts launch. I wanted to hear from them firsthand how and why they were drawn to the project? I wanted to learn how HIV/AIDS, art, activism and stigma has impacted their lives? I wanted to hear from them their sense of what proved meaningful in the discourse, process and exchange with the project and the audience during the event. Above all I wanted to hear their heart. I am blessed to have been present with them and I am blessed to have borne witness through their eyes and my own the legacies of HIV/AIDS then and now.  

The poem is written in five parts. I wrote each section as I completed either an individual interview or a set of interviews. I wanted each section to be able to live on its own and tell its own story. I hoped to discover through the sections’ iterative and  evolving interactions what the poem was truly about and how the emergent themes related to one another to tell a bigger story. I pray, however flawed, I have succeeded in hearing their hearts and learning a bit more of my own.

See also:

Luv ‘Til it Hurts, by Brad Walrond

Chateau Truvada

Lonely Christopher on April 25, 2019

I.


When I was raped, first he bought me cigarettes.
Both of us hilariously drunk, he followed me
into the bathroom, came up behind, then yanked
my pants down and pushed me into the tub.
This was at some rich girl’s apartment downtown.
When we were invited to the same wedding
(years later) and I told the groom why I didn’t want
to see him again, same boy texted me about
“what you think happened that night” because
he never realized what he did, maybe, scarily
easy to believe how obliviousness works.
But I remember: days later, going to the clinic,
telling them I was assaulted, getting tested.
“Oh honey, why didn’t you go to the police?”
Back then I didn’t fuck sober and loathed my body.
In 2012 the FDA approved Truvada as PrEP.
Antiretroviral medicines were used as post-exposure
prophylaxis on an “occupational” basis for nurses
stuck with needles, risked by strange blood. Now
taking pills as prevention was becoming a thing.
I researched the drug and went to Callen-Lorde
where a tidy doctor shot me down, denying the script
because “you’re not a sex worker” and telling me,
“Just try not to hook up with guys when you drink.”
I thought I’d hate him when I seroconverted.
There was an unreasonable terror situated bone-
deep that belied comprehension, the magical
thinking convincing me a virus could possibly
render you less worthy of love. What a fucking lie.
I realize that stories about HIV don’t have to be
couched in medical concern or whited moralization.
Nothing othering will gain subsists reputedly,
as a game tide of men turns on the axis of knowing.


II.


“Good luck with your little blue pill!” spat the poet,
suspicious of Pharma, plague survivor, watched
a boyfriend end on AZT (his breath smelled chemically).
“Bet you never had to go back into the closest
just so you could die in your childhood bedroom.”
My therapist wants me to have a problem with sex
but I figured out most of my shit before I got there.
He asked me if I thought older gay men might
be jealous of the resurgent bodily freedom
enjoyed finally by an undeserving generation
who never threw their friends’ corpses at Congress
nor made the world budge to stanch the crisis.
I’ve waged private battles, monumental to myself,
know the value of information and communication,
after no help from parents, teachers, or the government.
The generation preceding, thrown away in the trash:
Bob Hope smiled, “The Statue of Liberty has AIDS!
She either got it from the mouth of the Hudson or
the Staten Island ferry.” Arriving untrammeled
at a healthy praxis, let me tell you friends, is no light
feat after that kind of cruelty routed the discourse.
When HIV enters your body, it expects open doors,
receptive cells to infect and use to replicate itself,
but what if there was an intervention to block the enzyme,
preventing reverse transcription, leaving the virus to die?
That sounded like science fiction to some, slut shamers
reveled in insinuation, even gay nonprofits clutched
their pearls for years, but best practices evolved,
I switched doctors, and now I get a monthly bottle
of ocean blue gum drops that costs more than
the computer on which I am typing this poem.
I swallow them at golden hour, becoming now an
active participant in the course of my sexual health.


III.


Put on your raincoats, lads, there’s a storm outside!
Scary posters incriminate my sexuality: pleasure,
judgment, oblivion. Not even in the worst of it
did the men stop fucking; so raze the dunes, drown
the piers, lock the bathhouses forever, convert a
traffic island into an adorable memorial for those
who left this place screaming and covered in blood…
none of it matters to a cock clothed in your rectum.
Thank you, violent advocates with incursive demands,
inscribing your church-crushing rage into the concord,
whose bravery forged a safer home for homos to come.
Bless you, glittery whores: swapping fluids, dressing up,
taking what you need to survive, cunningly challenging
this heteronormative panopticon they built around us.
Nobody taught me much; I figured it out on my own
with some help from my friends and perfect strangers.
The world is full of people diagnosed yesterday
and slow progressors who knew they had HIV
back when it was a different acronym. Some of us
take many pills, others only one; technology ameliorates
what was once a plague and these cherished pellets
won’t always remain under strict corporate control.
The patents will break, options increase, and culture
habilitates glacially around the needs of others.
Some may presume we’re just chilling atop
Chateau Truvada, painting our nails, but we
made it through some treacherous shit to get here
and nobody’s diminishing the struggle of the past
by radically caring for ourselves in the present.
So I hope you don’t find me to be too didactic,
cliché, or sentimental in ending the poem with this:
Undetectable equals untransmittable, treatment
is prevention, ACT UP, fight back, end AIDS!

We Do Not Tread The Way That Is Conducted By Reason

Aline Ferreira on April 22, 2019

We do not tread the way that is conducted by reason!

The white-born reason, from white Greece… So pale and thirsting for blood…

Reason built insane asylums and raised prisons…

It is necessary to be very rational to calculate punishments, as long as productivity does not decline, and faith remains… Yes, even faith becomes inebriated by rationality, to collect awards in the gelid and quiet sky…

Reason divided us between the superior (those gifted by reason) and the inferior (those lacking in reason)… In this hierarchy the one who occupies the top dictates who can live and who must die…

Rationality coined Sovereignty and gave it a key to control mortality and to define life…

Reason instrumentalizes human existence in a general way and causes material destruction to our bodies …

And life, ever since, only exists in the spasms and in the confrontation with death…

And Reason even associated sexuality with violence…

As if sexuality was this dissolution … as if it was excretion and appropriation…

Rationality wrote the moral and imposed a taboo regime over us all…

Reason delivered to some the right to kill, operating based on a division between the alive and the dead, such a power defines itself in relation to a biological field, over which it takes control and inscribes itself into… distributing humanity into groups, and groups into subgroups… establishing a biological censorship between one another…

Reason invented Racism!

And racism is the perverse father of the politics of death…

Racism is, above all, a technology destined to allow the exercise of biopower… that old sovereign right to kill …

In the biopower economy, the role of racism is to regulate death’s distribution and to enable the State’s assassin role…

Reason dehumanized us and industrialized death…

reason civilized ways of killing…

Reason subjugated our bodies, with medical regulations, social darwinism, eugenics, medical-legal theories about heredity, degeneration, hazardousness…

Reason fragmented territories, prohibited accesses, expanded settlements …

Reason promoted the forced sterilization of black women, intoxicated our water with monsanto and our children were born with hydrocephaly…

Reason made use of AiD$ to criminalize black bodies and their sexualities… reason coined the concept of vulnerability to keep us passive…

reason made us hostage to guilt, condoms, the cocktail…

However, we… Do not tread through the path of reason.

Our references are other… It goes through the marked body, through the back where trees were planted, through the feet that did not choose to be here… in diaspora… We chose the useless, that which has never been written, what is sung by the old woman, in the taste of bitter coffee, like life… what is not an entity, has no identity, is not in academia, or in dusty encyclopedia pages…

It is not an adjective, nor a noun… We have not yet named it.

Nor do we need to…

What matters now is to affirm that: We do not tread the path of reason!

“Nosso corre é outro!”

_______________________________________________________________

Nós não trilhamos o caminho conduzido pela razão!

A razão nascida branca, da branca Grécia… Tão pálida e sedenta de sangue…

A Razão construiu Manicômios e ergueu presídios…

É preciso ser muito racional para calcular punições, na medida em que a produtividade não caia, e a fé permaneça… Sim, até a fé se embriaga de racionalidade, para angariar galardões no céu gélido e silencioso…

A Razão nos dividiu entre superiores (dotados de razão) e inferiores (ausentes de razão)… Nesta hierarquia quem ocupa o topo dita quem pode viver e quem deve morrer…

A racionalidade cunhou a Soberania e lhe deu a chave para controlar a mortalidade e definir a vida…

A razão instrumentaliza de forma generalizada a existência humana e causa a destruição material de nossos corpos …

E a vida, desde então, só existe em espasmos e no confronto com a morte…

A Razão associou até a sexualidade com a violência…

Como se sexualidade fosse essa dissolução … fosse excreção e apropriação…

A racionalidade escreveu a moral e impôs um regime de tabus sobre nós…

A razão entregou à alguns o direito de matar, operando com base em uma divisão entre vivos e mortos, tal poder se define em relação a um campo biológico, do qual toma o controle e no qual se inscreve…. distribuindo a humanidade em grupos, e os grupos em subgrupos… estabelecendo uma censura biológica entre uns e outros…

A razão inventou o Racismo!

E o racismo é pai perverso da política de morte…

Racismo é acima de tudo uma tecnologia destinada a permitir o exercício do biopoder… esse velho direito soberano de matar …

Na economia do biopoder, a função do racismo é regulamentar a distribuição da morte e tornar possíveis as funções assassinas do Estado…

a razão nos desumanizou e industrializou a morte…

a razão civilizou as formas de matar….

A razão subjugou nossos corpos, com regulamentações médicas, darwinismo social, eugenia, teorias médico-legais sobre hereditariedade, degeneração, periculosidade…

A razão fragmentou territórios, proibiu acessos, expandiu assentamentos …

A razão promoveu esterilização forçada das mulheres negras, intoxicou nossa água com maosanto e nossas crianças nasceram com hidrocefalia…

A razão se utilizou da AiD$ para criminalizar corpos negros e suas sexualidades… a razão cunhou o conceito de vulnerabilidade para nos manter passivos…

a razão nos fez refém da culpa, da camisinha, do coquetel…

Porém, nós… Não trilhamos o caminho da razão.

Nossos referências são outros… Passa pelo corpo marcado, pelas costas onde árvores foram plantadas, pelos pés que não escolheram estar aqui… em diáspora… Escolhemos o inútil, o que nunca fora escrito, o que cantado pela velha, no gosto do café amargo como a vida… o que não é ente, não tem identidade, não esta na academia, nem nas folhas das enciclopédias empoeiradas …

Não é adjetivo, nem substantivo… Ainda não nomeamos.

Nem precisamos…

O que importa agora afirmar é que: Nós, não trilhamos o caminho da razão!

“Nosso corre é outro!”

Mandala Art and the Story Behind How I Made It

Ayu Oktariani on February 14, 2019

By Ayu Oktariani

I was living with HIV for 8 years when I decide to pregnant. It’s been a long journey to make that decision. Waiting for the man who understand each other and want to take responsibility of having a child free from HIV. My husband is HIV Negative, so of course it’s easier for me to planning the pregnancy. I’m very nervous. It’s been 10 years after my first born. We have sex, no condom this time. But before planning to get pregnant, we always used the condom. I feel uncomfortable if we don’t use it, yeah you know… because of the HIV.

So, I am pregnant! I don’t know if it’s a happy or sad thing.

Once I see the two stripes in the pregnancy test, I feel like my world was going down. My mood is terrible and I don’t know why.  I was confused, and I suddenly felt capable of doing something unusual. 

I remember going to service station to fix the car with my husband. On the way I suddenly drew in a small notebook that I always bring everywhere. I don’t understand why, and I don’t know what I was drawing. It was circle with so many layer and pattern inside. It’s a repetition pattern. I realize something, every time I traced the pen I feel so much better. My husband ask what am I doing? What I am  drawing? And I said I don’t know, but I feel good.

After that moment, I buy all  the drawing tools for my painting. I practice at home, in a café, before sleep, and anywhere. And I realize I never feel terrible again during the pregnancy. 

The terrible mood during pregnancy is not gone. They keep coming back and what make it worse, I couldn’t eat anything. And not long after finish eating I will vomit. I remember I loss almost 15 pound in my first 16 week. It was so exhausted. Sometimes I’m crying with no reason in the middle of the night. I am very afraid to be in the in a crowd, like if I’m going to traditional market. I can suddenly vomit in front of the people I don’t feel comfortable with.  

But then again, I feel much better when I decide to draw. 

So curious with the pattern and the circle I draw, I searching and Voila! The name is Mandala! What I got from the definition from Wikipedia, Mandala is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the universe.  After know what I drew, I do not care so much. I am not so concerned just kept drawing and feel that Mandala repaired the bad thing during my pregnancy.

After a long journey the day he was born finally arrived. No is not easy.

It’s one of my painful journey after battle HIV stigma and everything. The baby was born, his name is Sir Miguel. Unfortunately, I never see him once he comes out from my stomach after the surgery. Because of the shit procedure that makes me asleep with the anaesthetic. I never know that he is not crying, I don’t know he had trouble breathing, I don’t even know that his ratio of oxygen only 60% after born. In order to breathing he should be fitted with the ventilator machine.

It’s getting worse because the hospital in our city in Indonesia cannot provide my baby the machine to help him breathe. So he should move to other hospital, they separate us. I can’t even touch or breastfeed him, or even his first prophylaxis medication (to stop him from getting HIV). They just took him away from me. My husband is taking care of him, once in awhile he sent me his picture or video of him in a box with the machine entering into his small throat. I am crying. I cannot calm down, I screwed up everything. I’m a bad mom, I cannot deliver a healthy baby, it’s my fault.

40 hours after the doctor trying to help, Sir Miguel passed away.

And we never got an answer why.

.

.

.

Today, it’s been almost 2 years after he leaving us. I am recovering every second using so many methods. I am following the five step of grief and I feel like shit each time I remember this story. My parents, husband, daughter and even my friends are trying so hard to cheer me up. But they cannot. 

On July, third month after my baby left me… I start to drawing Mandala again. 

But now is different. I don’t feel anything, I’m not feeling even better. But I am trying every day. I remember, during the pregnancy that I could draw three Mandala a day. But now, one is struggling. Until sometime, one of my friend Dea, with her astrology project asking me to help drawing for the Taurus Session. I ask why me? I am Libra. And she said, it’s not because of me. She is interest with the Mandala. So the project is talking about the sign of the zodiac each month and it include one artist to make some art that relate to the zodiac sign.

I keep asking why me?

But After a month of trying, I finish draw a head of bull, with the Mandala Pattern inside and around. That’s it. But Dea, who own the project found a lot of “thing” that I need to know.

She thinks during my pregnancy the energy for drawing of the Mandala is come from the baby. She can prove it with the zodiac chart that she check in her apps. After she put a date and time of him, this what come after…

“Most of the planet is in second quadrant, it’s the area of creativity. Arrangement of planets also not really scattered, means he is focus. Miguel is a Lunar Aries, with Scorpio rising. It makes him have a big energy and It may be a little mysterious his external appearance”.

I am speechless.

There so much magical coincidence in our collaboration. She doesn’t know why there is strong encouragement to ask me to be artist who contributed to the Taurus edition. She knows that I am a Libra, but after all her investigation she realized that the Taurus one is Miguel. 

The other fact is I start to draw is when I pregnant, and after Miguel born I am back to be the Libra who very inconsistent. My art is also change more colorful, it’s so black and white before.

She is claiming to seek artist but nearly the same time I suddenly showed up with the mandala. Our deep conversation makes me found the connection between the Sand Mandala from Tibet and my journey of Guarding, praying, and eventually let the baby go.

There is another friend who can also see something during the pregnancy. “Ayu, your baby is so powerful and have a big energy, it’s larger than the mother. As the mother you may not be able to bear energy of your son. That is why the universe immediately take him a moment after he was born.”

Dea  said something again about Miguel “He lived without the body because maybe body cannot accommodate his strength. That was so large energy and he cannot solidified in space. But for sure, he will never leave you. He always be with you as something that I cannot explain. I believe this project wan to remind you as his parents”.

In one of the in ancient mythology of taurus, zeus said, “All things reached by your eyes after that you may have.”

Meanwhile Dea think, Miguel might say “There is something that you cannot reach from your eyes and you cannot have. But, what do you let go of actually, living together with you as the essence.”

I still draw Mandala until now. I also draw for people who want me to see inside them self, it’s all for free. I am never try to sell anything.  Somehow, I believe mandala really help me to fight my anxiety and fear also the anger of loss. 

The history of Tibetan Mandala start with the Sand, it made with pray and very care full by the monk, Mandala is the means of meditation. When it’s done and be a beautiful image, the mandala must be removed. Sand collected for release into the sea so it reached the shore.  

A series of the ceremony was conducted to remind me that is nothing eternal. Happiness, sadness, comfort, suffering, all flowing in cycles for the larger planned.  At the end, we have to learn releasing everything with sincere.  Like the sand from the Mandala that clad with pray, everything that we release will flow over the ocean to the universe. For Love Positive Women, let’s share our own wisdom of healing together.

HIV/AIDS Testimonial Art Story

Joyce McDonald on February 13, 2019

Joyce McDonald is an artist in many senses of the word. She is, of course, a literal artist: a talented painter and sculptor whose works often capture in stark relief the gamut of emotions she’s experienced throughout her colorful life. Joyce is also a weaver of words: not just as a poet or a songwriter (she is both), but also as speaker for her church’s AIDS ministry and assistant director of its children’s choir. We are celebrating her for Love Positive Women 2019.

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