ARTSPEAK RADIO -Schulman, Callahan, Rice, Faus, Aya, & Sullivan

Wednesday April 24, 2019 noon to 1pm CST 90.1FM KKFI Kansas City Community Radio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes Blair Schulman, GK Callahan, Lindsay Rice, José Faus, Aya, and Tom Sullivan to the program.

Blair Schulman & GK Callahahan-Mapping Stigma: An Archive of the Contracting an Issue Project
May 3 – July 27, 2019
Leedy-Voulkos Art Center / 2020 Baltimore, Kansas City, MO. 64108 816-474-1414 / www.leedy-voulkos.com

PRESS CONTACT: Blair Schulman / [email protected]

Mapping Stigma: An Archive of the Contracting an Issue Project
presents archival and new works from GK Callahan’s ongoing, decade-long study of the social issues surrounding HIV and AIDS. This work springs from real life voices in the communities of San Francisco, Kansas City, Tampa and Tanzania, Africa. The layered visual works will also be accompanied by educational workshops and panel discussions to occur once a month during the exhibition’s three-month run.
Curated by Kansas City art critic and curator Blair Schulman, this work calls attention to the cultural responses concerning criminalization, representation, and stigmatization of HIV/AIDS. Comprising photography, video, painting, installation and works on paper, the exhibition is broken out into four distinct sections of the gallery space and includes work from the Zekana women of Tanzania, Africa, Bruce Burstert and many other collaborators.
The primary documentation of Contracting An Issue is shown through looped videos of performances that derived from interviews around HIV in a modern context. These dialogues were transcribed and read by actors to amplify exposure and ensure anonymity.
Criminalization education and advocacy that has not kept pace with public policy are presented as a reading space in the gallery. This open source library on HIV criminalization will also include free handouts and safe sex items. The issue of criminalization will be discussed with LGBTQ, law and healthcare communities from Kansas City, Columbia, Missouri, Jefferson City and New York City as one of the exhibition’s panel discussion modules.
Mimi ni/I am (literally meaning I am/I am) concerns the Zekana women of Arusha, Tanzania, a self-supporting community of HIV-positive women who face stigmatization at home for their health status. Callahan requested and received permission from them to share their story to illustrate how healthcare education in other parts of the globe are as stagnant and oppressive as it was in the West thirty years earlier when less was known about HIV/AIDS. Callahan was also interested in how HIV is perceived globally. Callahan believes that in America HIV/AIDS is still regarded as a “gay issue,” but In Africa women alone, regardless of sexual orientation, bear the brunt of the blame. Callahan presents the women and their work as an homage to their unwavering strength and a gesture of respect.
Generations of survivors are represented in this exhibition by a shrine (an original artwork by Bruce Burstert) and a collaborative painting between Callahan and Burstert, representing the generations of survivors. The painting pays homage to Burstert’s late partner, illuminating for us how having survived this crisis does not put an end to the grieving period. It does, however, provide a source of knowledge for why continuing education does not begin and end with treatment alone.
About the artist and curator
GK Callahan creates cultural change through social engagement. As an art administrator, artist, and community engagement professional, GK has over ten years’ experience working in the community arts field. He earned his MFA in social practice at California College of the Arts and his BFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. Currently, GK works as a Community Arts and County Engagement Specialist for the University of Missouri Extension, focusing on economic and community development in Missouri.
Blair Schulman is an art writer, critic and curator. He is Managing Editor of Informalityblog.com, an online artist-run publication documenting contemporary art in Kansas City. His writing appears in Art in America, Ceramics: Art & Perception, Huffpost, Juxtapoz, the Kansas City Star, Temporary Art Review, Vice, Whitehot and was a longtime contributor to the late Review magazine. Curated exhibitions in Kansas City include Select Username and Password at Front/Space and Traces & Trajectories at La Esquina.

LINDSAY RICE has been writing poetry since middle school. She studied poetry and fiction at The University of Iowa and draws inspiration from her international travels. Currently, she lives in her home town of Prairie Village, Kansas where she tutors middle and high school students in academic and creative writing. She is also an executive board member of Whispering Prairie Press. Lindsay is working on her first novel that encompasses magical realism and historical fiction. Her current new poetry: a series of Pony Poems—explores the edges of youthful joy and longing and extended pieces chasing spiritual alignment and inner work.

JOSE FAUS is a writer, performer, and visual artist working in the Kansas City where he maintains Carido Studio., He is a facilitator with Artist Inc. He is a co-founder of the Latino Writers Collective and serves on the boards of the Latino Writers Collective, Friends of the UMKC Library and Charlotte Street Foundation. His writing has appeared in a series of anthologies and journals and he has released two publications, a chapbook This Town Like That from Spartan Press and the full length poetry collection The Life and Times of José Calderon from West 39 press. He is part of the upcoming Fire in the Heart – An uplifting Celebration of Resilience at the White Theater of the Jewish Community Center. April 6 & 7. He will be a featured reader at the Daily Nada on April 27 for poetry month.

AYA-I’m a writer and filmmaker with a lifelong fascination for metafiction. I’m here to help you understand your metaphysical relationship with your creativity by teaching you how to write better fiction. My double major is in Creative Writing/Filmmaking, and in the last several years I’ve authored (and sometimes produced) several original metafictive stories, including Fearsome Pole, Real Boy: an Allegory, and “Say You’re Sorry.” I was a producer on the Emmy-nominated documentary Beyond Belief. My short film Five Apples Today later led to Delta Phi. My favorite moments in life include opening a new pen and dragging the skinny blue playhead in Premiere Pro. I aspire to write metafiction full time for film, cable, books and VR. So if you’re looking for a new screenplay, or even just a coverage or consultation for your own scripts, then I look forward to hearing from you.

TOM SULLIVAN After returning from service in Mongolia with the US Peace Corps in 2010, Tom started working as a freelancer, providing writing and editorial services in fields related to his previous work experiences as a teacher, writer and editor. Tom is skilled in academic, educational, instructional, technical, marketing, sales, and journalistic writing styles. He also enjoys and is comfortable working with non-native speakers/writers of English. Until recently, Tom was an adjunct instructor at MCCKC.
In addition to freelancing, Tom is the President of the Board of Direcctors at Whispering Prairie Press, an independent nonprofit literary press in Kansas City, MO. WPP produces Kansas City Voices and KC Voices Youth magazines, which feature prose, poetry, and fine art. Learn more at wppress.org.
Tom is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association. Learn more about the EFA at the-efa.org

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