Aaron Markwell: "Everyone’s experience of HIV is different"
Aaron, you’re the artist-in-residence at Helix Arts in North Shields – how did that come about?
In February 2024, as part of their 40th year celebrations:Re:Visits, Helix Arts put out a call for a residency opportunity for a Disabled artist . Artists had to apply with an idea of how they might like to interact with a project in the Helix Arts’ archive, I applied to the Re:Visits residency with an idea around recontextualising Living Proof, a project from 1992, where artists Nicholas Lowe and Michael McMillan created artwork within the North East community in response to the HIV epidemic.
I’ve now been working on the residency from July this year, and have been focused on building strategic partnerships and working with my Helix Arts producers and the local community on how to build a response to the Living Proof project.
Tell me a little bit about the work that Helix does?
Helix Arts is an arts charity collaborating and connecting with local communities. They have worked for more than 40 years to support community members and artists to work together to bring about meaningful changes to their health, their prospects, their communities, and their environments.
They work with people of all backgrounds and ages, those who are often forgotten, vulnerable and living in adverse circumstances; especially young people and families at risk and people living with challenging health conditions, particularly older people, and diverse communities. Helix Arts is based in North Tyneside and deeply rooted in this area with ambitions to create greater impact.
Helix Arts undertake projects in public spaces, communities, care homes, prisons, schools, parks, clubs, arts venues - anywhere where people feel most comfortable and sometimes in places that make some people a little uncomfortable too.
What inspired you to organise the event for World AIDS Day this year?
In response to Living Proof, which featured a series of activities and exhibitions in response to the HIV epidemic led by artists Nicholas Lowe and Michael Macmillan, I was inspired to bring together a new exhibition and performance event to mark World AIDS Day.
This felt like an important time to present this response, as this is the main day of the year where the world’s attention turns ever so slightly towards HIV. The irony is, that for those living with HIV, this is their everyday. Their reminders come through taking their medication, attending medical appointments, often not being able to share their status through fear of stigmatisation.
Although the event day itself has lots of activities to be involved in, I wanted to create a lasting impact, and as an ex-interior designer and visual merchandiser, I was inspired to create a window display at Helix Arts, which is in central North Shields. This will be installed for the entirety of December, creating a lasting reminder that even during the holiday season, HIV is an ever-present factor in some people’s lives.
There is lots going on! Talk me through what you are planning.
In the run up to the event, we held community awareness-building and creative workshops with North Tyneside residents, led by myself and Michael Jeffries, one of the original participants in Living Proof in 1992.
The day itself will feature the launch of the impactful window display featuring 2,348 of the iconic red ribbons (representing the number of people living with HIV in the North East, 2023) combined with the co-created art work.
On the day there will be the opportunity for people to take part in a ‘talk and make’ art workshop with Michael, making work about perceptions of the HIV landscape in 2024. There will also be a conversation focused on providing some key education about HIV for the community, and a talk around how to revolutionise spaces for people living with HIV and about wider health stigma.
We’re delighted that North Tyneside Council’s Public Health Team are supporting us to provide home test kits for HIV: people can register on the day to take a test home. We’re also hosting a live dance rehearsal which will end in a performance, re-visiting a dance work - Life Structure: Replication – that I made 10 years ago around DNA replication and how the HIV virus becomes part of this process. The audience will be able to see the process of creating the work as well as the performance.
There will be a curated exhibition of the Living Proof project, providing the first in-depth look at the work since 1992. The exhibition will also contain some contemporary information, highlighting the difference of landscape for people living with HIV in the 1990s compared to the present day.
Lastly, in the window, there will be a QR code, which means that people can take away a digital experience of the day, or engage with it at a later date. This link will contain a digital zine about the window and process, a link to donate to the National AIDS Trust and links to helpful services people can contact. Even if the local community can’t come on the day, they will still be able to access current information about HIV. I hope this will go a small way to tackling the stigma and misinformation that we still see today.
What do you hope people will learn or better understand after visiting the event?
I hope that people will have a better understanding of HIV in 2024. So many things have changed since most people last really engaged with HIV as a conversation. Medication, life expectancy, treatments and their side-effects have changed so much over the last three decades, but I don’t think that the public’s opinion of living with HIV has adapted as quickly.
Teaching in high schools in London before moving here showed me that even the education system in the largest cities doesn't provide all the information that our young people need to help them make informed decisions around HIV and other STDs, and that was concerning for me. I hope this event will go some way in educating people about what the landscape for people living with HIV looks like today.
One of the most important things I hope people take away from the event is that everyone’s experience of HIV is different. That’s why I thought it was important to create such a large-scale arts intervention.
Why did you want to collaborate with the National AIDS Trust on this project?
The National AIDS Trust is an organisation that brings hope to so many people affected by and living with HIV. Their continued fight against inequalities experienced by those living with and affected by HIV is truly inspirational. Their work with some of the world’s most famous artists to raise awareness has been influential and helped raise awareness of HIV-related issues to so many.
I also want to just highlight the success of achieving Equal Fertility Rights for people living with HIV. National AIDS Trust’s track record of building important stepping stones in providing constitutional equalities is why I felt so strongly that this would be a good collaboration. Thank you so much for supporting the North Tyneside community, people living with HIV in the North East and believing in me as an artist.