The HIV Howler: Transmitting Art and Activism

The HIV Howler: Transmitting Art and Activism is a limited edition art newspaper focusing on global grassroots HIV art and cultural production. Artists, writers and activists play a fundamental role in shaping broader societal understandings of HIV and working from within communities that are most impacted by the virus. Together we reflect the immediacy and urgency of global HIV/AIDS dialogues as well as their historical continuities. The HIV Howler is a forum for dialogue, a demand for aesthetic self-determination, a response to tokenism, and a guide to navigating the vibrational ambiguities between policy, pathology, and community. It is founded and edited by Anthea Black and Jessica Whitbread with an Editorial Advisory Committee that includes Theodore Kerr, Charles Long, Kairon Liu, Mikiki, Darien Taylor, and L’Orangelis Thomas. Anthea Black is a Canadian artist, writer, and cultural worker based in San Francisco and Toronto. Her studio work addresses feminist and queer history, collaboration, materiality, and labour and she is an Assistant Professor in Printmedia and Graduate Fine Arts at California College of the Arts. Jessica Whitbread is a graduate of the York University Masters of Environmental Studies program and is a queer activist and artist that has been working in the HIV movement since shortly after her diagnosis in 2002. She is a recipient of the Premier’s Award from the Government of Ontario, and the Visual AIDS Vanguard Award.