Day With(out) Art 2025: Meet Us Where We’re At…

PUBLICS is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2025 by presenting Meet Us Where We’re At, On December 3rd at 12noon and 5pm we will screen a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.

Meet Us Where We’re At… will feature newly commissioned videos by Kenneth Idongesit Usoro (Nigeria), Hoàng Thái Anh (Vietnam), Gustavo Vinagre & Vinicius Couto (Brazil/Portugal), Camilo Tapia Flores (Chile/Brazil), Camila Flores-Fernández (Peru/Germany), and José Luis Cortés (Puerto Rico)

Commissioned videos by artists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany, and Vietnam journey across a range of spaces revealing the complexity of drug use. Several videos document the visible world of drugs—a harm reduction program in a Berlin park, a night out during Rio’s Carnival—while others reveal private, often hidden spaces where safety is found: bedrooms, underground clinics, and moments of connection between lovers.

Meet Us Where We’re At speaks not only to the variety of physical locations where contemporary harm reduction is practiced, but also to a broader shift: centering drug users as authors of their own experiences. Rooted in the philosophy of meeting people at their personal reality without judgment, the program affirms the full context of drug use—its pleasures, its risks, and its role in how people survive, care, and connect.

Harm reduction has long been central to the AIDS movement through practices like needle exchange and safe injection sites, and people who use drugs have been affected by HIV since the earliest days of the epidemic. This program brings their perspectives to the forefront, amplifying the voices of drug users as storytellers, cultural producers, and essential participants in the global response to HIV.

Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.

Video Synopses

Kenneth Idongesit Usoro, Voices of Resilience
Voices of Resilience follows the lives of queer individuals and drug users living with HIV in Nigeria. Through personal interviews and experimental visual storytelling, the film shows the protagonists’ worlds as they seek out underground harm reduction services.

Hoàng Thái Anh, The Sister’s Journey
Through a documentary style, The Sister’s Journey explores the daily life of a transgender woman in Vietnam using drugs. The film delves into her fear of stigma, struggles she faces, and the vital role of harm reduction services and healthcare available to her.

Gustavo Vinagre and Vinicius Couto, chempassion
In the magical realist film, chempassion, a gay man reminisces about his orgy days and chem sex, contemplating what the future holds for himself and his close relationships.

Camilo Tapia Flores, Realce (Highlight)
Realce is a documentary short following two HIV-positive friends, DJ Deseo and porn actor Fernando Brutto, during one of their performances at Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival. The duo move through the streets of Rio and Carnival “blocos,” sharing their reflections on friendship, undetectability, their relationship with sex, and drug use within their own community.

Camila Flores-Fernández, Ghost in the Park
Ghost in the Park traces the narratives of the community of Görlitzer Park, an area in Berlin known for public drug use and trade. Highlighting “drug consumption buses” that promote safer use and aim to reduce HIV transmission among drug users, the space of the bus is taken as an axis through which the experiences and feelings of the community around the park are amplified.

José Luis Cortés, ¿Por qué tanto dolor? (Why so much pain?)
Instead of asking, “Why so much meth in the gay community?,” Cortés’s experimental film provokes the deeper question, “Why so much pain?” The film delves into the emotional and social wounds that fuel addiction and risk-taking behaviors.

Artist Biographies

Kenneth Idongesit Usoro (he/him) is a young Nigerian filmmaker and Executive Director of The Colored Space, a studio championing LGBTQ+ voices. Specializing in documentary and experimental storytelling, Kenneth tackles stigmas faced by marginalized communities, particularly queer people. His work emphasizes resilience and harm reduction, using film to inspire dialogue, foster understanding, and drive social change. Passionate about authentic narratives, Kenneth leverages his creative platform to empower communities and break down barriers through impactful storytelling.

Hoàng Thái Anh (he/him) is a social worker dedicated to advancing the well-being of marginalized communities in Vietnam. With a passion for storytelling through video, he collaborates with advisory boards, community members, and stakeholders to create impactful short films that highlight the challenges these communities face, focusing on healthcare access and harm reduction. His work ensures that their experiences are portrayed and authentically represented. 

Gustavo Vinagre (he/him) is a filmmaker and documentarian who has written and directed over 14 short and six feature-length films. Having studied literature at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and film at the EICTV school in Cuba, Vinagre holds a prolific career spanning over 10 years, with films that are known for their vibrant queerness and their intimate approach to image and sound. The award-winning Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter was his first fiction feature film and premiered at Berlinale Forum in 2022. His films have won more than 100 awards and have been featured twice in Cahiers du Cinéma.

Vinicius Couto (he/him) is a Brazilian artist and creative director based in Portugal, whose work explores the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and LGBTQIA+ identity from a post-structuralist perspective. He has participated in residencies and exhibitions at institutions such as the Cairo Biennale 2018/2023, MAM-SP, and CMA Hélio Oiticica. In 2021, he held his first solo exhibition at EtopiaZgz (Spain) and was invited to perform at André Breton’s house in France. In 2022, he presented the installation “Pro_cu.rar.se” in Lisbon. He is currently the curator of the Palácio do Grilo in Lisbon, continuing to investigate contemporary sociocultural and political dynamics.

Camilo Tapia Flores (he/him) is a Latin American queer artist, journalist, and DJ whose work reflects his experience as HIV-positive, focusing on bringing HIV discussions into the spaces he inhabits. From 2019 to 2022, he actively collaborated with the JEVVIH association to promote HIV awareness on Chile’s public agenda. Now based in Rio de Janeiro, he continues his activism within the underground electronic scene, raising awareness through his art and presence in the community.

Camila Flores-Fernández (she/her) is a Peruvian researcher and artist currently based in Berlin. She holds an MSc in Cultural Anthropology (KU Leuven) and is a current MA student in the EMJMD Media Arts Cultures and Erasmus Mundus scholar. Her work centers around marginalized communities and employs ethnographic and collaborative methodologies.

José Luis Cortés (he/him)  is an artist who works across painting, performance, and video, best known for artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990s. A native Philadelphian, Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life, documenting a life on the fringes of society: of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape. Through his work he validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican. Cortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Out Magazine, and many other publications.