Art Dept. to Host Spring Lectures on History of HIV/AIDS

Art Dept. to Host Spring Lectures on History of HIV/AIDS

The University of Toledo Department of Art and its Art and Disease class will present two upcoming lectures exploring the history and societal impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Both events will take place in the Center for the Visual Arts Haigh Auditorium, located on the Toledo Museum of Art Campus.

The series begins on Thursday, March 26, at 1:30 p.m., with a lecture titled, "From Death Sentence to Chronic Condition: HIV after 45 Years." The event features guest speakers Dr. Joan M. Duggan and Susan Carter.

Duggan is an infectious disease specialist with more than 37 years of experience and serves as the medical director of the University of Toledo Medical Center's Ryan White Program, which provides care to patients living with HIV/AIDS. Carter, who holds degrees in fine arts and counseling, began her career volunteering at Toledo's first HIV test site and continues to volunteer at the Infectious Disease Clinic.

"The AIDS crisis helped reveal fault lines in society: such as how statistics were collected by the Centers for Disease Control, who was eligible for HIV treatment, how experimental drug protocols take place, and the stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS (including caretakers)," said Dr. Mysoon Rizk, a professor of art history in the Department of Art. "Such issues were spotlighted by AIDS activism in the late 1980s, helping change, for example, the speed with which experimental drugs get rolled out by the Food and Drug Administration. The first talk focuses on the historical trajectory of the AIDS crisis, from 1981 until the present; the second talk offers a history of David's House, a home created for people living with HIV/AIDS designed, in part, to alleviate the kind of stigma they experienced."

The second event is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, at 1:30 p.m. and will feature a lecture and film screening by UToledo instructor and independent filmmaker Holly Hey. Her work focuses on documentaries and experimental films centered on social justice issues, including queer identity, access to clean water, criminal justice reform and HIV history.

Hey will screen her film, "Sister Eileen and Her Boyz, an HIV in the Rust Belt Story." Her films have previously been featured at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Athens International Film Festival, the Big Muddy Film Festival and the Queens World Film Festival.