La Galleria: Love Positive Women 2020 Valentine Pop-up Exhibition
Visual AIDS, the Fire Island Artist Residency, Dieu Donné, Positive Women's Network — USA, and The Well Project.
Opening Reception: January 31, 7–9PM
Reflections from HIV+ women at 7:30PM
For LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN 2020, artists, activists and HIV+ women came together at Dieu Donné’s paper making studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to create hundreds of unique handmade paper valentines to be mailed to self-identifying women living with HIV around the world.
The LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN Valentine Pop-up Exhibition at La MaMa Galleria will display the valentines, and women involved in the project will reflect on the importance of love and community building. Directly after the exhibition, these artworks will be mailed internationally to women living with HIV to arrive in time for Valentine’s Day.
The project is a collaboration between Visual AIDS, the Fire Island Artist Residency, Dieu Donné, Positive Women’s Network — USA, and The Well Project to show love and support for women living with HIV.
LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN is an ongoing project established by Visual AIDS artist member Jessica Whitbread in 2013. “Why not do something nice for the women most forgotten about?” says Whitbread. “I started LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN in 2013 as a way to rally women living with HIV to celebrate themselves as well as be celebrated by friends, lovers, children and loving souls. LPW runs annually from February 1–14, so we continue to not be forgotten and loved continuously. I look forward to watching my friends and community not only shower others with acts of kindness but also be showered as well.”
La MaMa Galleria
Founded in 1984, La Galleria is a nonprofit gallery committed to nurturing experimentation in the visual arts. La Galleria encourages an active dialogue between new media, performance, the plastic and visual arts, curatorial projects, and educational initiatives. It serves the East Village community by offering diverse programming to an inter-generational audience, and expanding the parameters of a traditional gallery space. As a non-profit, La Galleria is able to provide artists and curators with unique exhibition opportunities that are largely out of reach in a commercial gallery setting.