This event will take place online. The event is free, but requires you to register so that we can send you a Zoom link to participate. Please scroll down to “How to Participate” for more information.

Second in our weekly online panel discussions, “Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19,” the April 8 forum looks at “The Role of Art and Artists in a Pandemic.” An intergenerational panel of Bay Area artists will explore ways in which artists responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and how these experiences might inform artistic responses to COVID-19 today. Panelists will also discuss the personal and cultural impacts of living through a pandemic, and how these impacts might constrain or inspire the creative process. The panel will be moderated by GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

REGISTER

SPEAKERS

Tina Valentin Aguirre (genderqueer, they/them pronouns) is originally from Logan Heights, San Diego. They moved to the Bay Area for college in 1986 and found a vibrant queer Latinx community mobilizing against AIDS. In the early 1990s, they helped set up AIDS programs at Mission Neighborhood Health Center’s Clínica Esperanza and Community United in Response to AIDS/SIDA (CURAS). In 1992, they appeared in Augie Robles’s “Cholo Joto” video; Augie and Tina both made ¡Viva 16! (1994) to mark the loss and struggles of the queer Latinx community in San Francisco.

Terry Beswick (moderator) has served as executive director of the GLBT Historical Society since 2016. At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, he was a founding member of the local ACT UP and was the first national coordinator of ACT NOW, the national AIDS activist network. He advocated for HIV/AIDS research and treatment with Project Inform, the Human Rights Campaign and the White House Office of HIV/AIDS Policy. After the advent of effective treatments for HIV, Beswick worked as a journalist for the Bay Area Reporter and other LGBTQ community publications. More recently, he spearheaded a successful campaign to save and renovate the Castro Country Club for the queer recovery community and co-founded the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. He holds an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University. Beswick has been named a Community Grand Marshal for the 50th Anniversary San Francisco LGBTQ Pride Parade and Celebration in 2020.

Katie Conry has served as the Tenderloin Museum’s executive director since 2016 and has cemented TLM’s identity as a destination for community-based, historically-inspired arts programs with a dynamic vision for neighborhood-centric, diverse programs that bring people together from all walks of life. Along with weekly public programming and exhibitions, she led TLM’s production of two major, critically-acclaimed performance projects: “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot” play and the “Tender” aerial dance with Flyaway Productions.

Leo Herrera

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

This event will take place online. After you register above, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and instructions on how to join the Zoom webinar as an attendee. Please make sure to scroll to the bottom of the email from Eventbrite to see the instructions!

Attendees will be able to participate as a virtual audience by asking questions, participating in polls and chatting with one another and panelists. Attendee registration is limited to 500 participants.

We will also be livestreaming this event on the GLBT Historical Society YouTube channel and linking to the video on social media for an unlimited amount of viewers.

ADMISSION

Free | Suggested donation of $5.00

The event is limited to 500 attendees.

JOIN THE GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks:
www.glbthistory.org/memberships

Image credit: Still from a video of an ACT UP San Francisco demonstration in San Francisco, 1989; footage by Charles Cyberski, Charles Cyberski Videotapes (1994-03), GLBT Historical Society.

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