Ecstatic Skin

Visual AIDS presents Ecstatic Skin as part of BROADCAST, a free summer screening series featuring contemporary artists’ responses to the ongoing AIDS crisis through the medium of video.

Entities of the natural world surface as ally, collaborator, and witness in a series of shorts exploring care acts on family land, desire in public parks, and HIV & AIDS activism on land occupied by a women’s Pr*son.

Ecstatic Skin considers the connection between land stewardship and bodily autonomy, how caring for the land is synonymous with the care we apply to our own bodies, and the ramifications when this relationship becomes disrupted. For Black people in particular, the relationship between body and land is still under repair and not separate from the ways in which Black people continue to be impacted by HIV/AIDS.

This program is presented in partnership with Weeksville Heritage Center, a historic site and cultural center in Central Brooklyn that preserves, documents, and engages with the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America. Ecstatic Skin is an invitation to consider relationships between the earth, bodies, and health in a setting where the weight of history and land is palpable.

Born and raised in The Bronx, New York, Chayanne Marcano is an artist, writer, and the Associate Producer at Abrons Arts Center.

Weeksville Heritage Center COVID Protocols:

As an organization founded with Black liberation in mind, we aim to support all Black people––always, and especially through the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. This includes disabled, immunocompromised, and otherwise vulnerable community members who are artists, local residents, visitors, and staff members.

As such, we require face coverings that cover nose, mouth, and chin indoors at all public programs. We highly encourage the use of high-quality masks such as KN95s and KF94s at all times, and ask that all who come on-site remain mindful of maintaining a safe physical distance when sharing space indoors and outdoors.

BROADCAST Screening Series

BROADCAST highlights curated selections from Visual AIDS’s video commissions alongside new and historical AIDS video, including the US premiere of two international projects. In tandem with the series, Visual AIDS is launching a new online archive of past video commissions at video.visualaids.org.

BROADCAST features six unique screenings from June 8–July 9 at venues across New York City. Full details are available at visualaids.org/broadcast.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Avenue, Brooklyn, United States