My involvement with the Art | Global Health Center at UCLA began in the fall of this school year, September 2009. The Center was able to get Pieter-Dirk Uys - a well-known performer, satirist, and social activist from South Africa - to come to UCLA and lead a two-week workshop with a group of willing students at UCLA from various academic departments. I participated in this workshop and learned about HIV/AIDS facts, the negative stigmatization associated with HIV positive individuals, and the ways in which all of this can be helped. The group of students that participated in the workshop became the "AIDS Performance Team."
I learned from Pieter the importance of art as a medium for change, which I had previously been quite skeptical of. At the end of the workshop, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Bobby Gordon (Outreach and Project Coordinator for the Center) and the AIDS Performance Team put on an original show about HIV and AIDS. The show was creative, informative, and entertaining all at once. We addressed topics such as condom use, the stigma surrounding AIDS, the importance of testing, and more.
Since then, I have continued my involvement with the Center through volunteer work and even more performing. During Winter quarter, the AIDS Performance Team (which gained some members) created a new show called "When the Situation Gets Slippery". We went to three L.A. high schools with this performance, which included acting, singing, dancing, beat-boxing, and all the fun and informative aspects of Pieter's original idea. In the past couple weeks, Bobby Gordon has arranged filming of some of the AIDS Performance Team's work, which will be edited into a creative and original film. This film will allow us to reach even more high schools in Los Angeles and beyond.
The reason this work is so effective and so inspirational is because it is not just informative - it's serious, it's hilarious, and it's completely honest. The show gets students to listen in ways that a sex ed class never could, and they learn so much more.
The Art | Global Health Center involved in many other projects, and they are always looking for creative ideas or an extra set of helping hands. Below is an excerpt from their website about their mission and the ways they achieve their goals.
"Our endeavors are shepherded by the following guiding principles:
1: The Power of a Global Network of Artists
We aim to facilitate collaboration between artists and advocates working for the advancement of global health, strengthening public health interventions through improved communication via the international artists’ network and database.
2: The Creative Process as a Catalyst for Change
Our programs seek to create points of personal identification through art as a means to elicit empathy, understanding, and emotional growth through recognition of a shared humanity.
3: De-Centered Sites of Artistic Encounter
We aim to expand our audience into sites of encounter beyond elite spaces. These sites are portable, village level, street level; they reach all populations.
4: Education as Action
We seek to develop, implement and evaluate arts-based educational programs, taking advantage of the laboratory provided by UCLA to ascertain the most effective means to educate and empower youth in the battle against HIV/AIDS."
If you want to get involved with the Art | Global Health Center at UCLA, visit their website and click on the "Contact Us" tab at the top.
Also, if you want to see a sample of some of the stuff I've done with the AGHC, watch this YouTube video that was used as an advertisement for UCLA Campus World AIDS Day.
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