For the 2016 Day With(out) Art, ICA and Visual AIDS present a conversation and screening of COMPULSIVE PRACTICE, a video compilation of compulsive, daily, and habitual practices by nine artists and activists who live with their cameras as one way to manage, reflect upon, and change how they are deeply affected by HIV/AIDS.

This hour-long video program will be introduced by artist Carolyn Lazard, followed by a conversation with Carolyn and writer and organizer Theodore (Ted) Kerr on the intersecting urgency of representation, culture, and HIV/AIDS-related health services. Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia’s dedicated LGBTQ healthcare service, will provide materials at ICA about their services throughout the day.

From video diaries to civil disobedience, holiday specials and backstage antics, Betamax to YouTube, COMPULSIVE PRACTICE displays a diversity of artistic approaches, experiences, and expectations. The compulsive video practices of these artists serves many purposes—cure, treatment, outlet, lament, documentation, communication—and have many tones: obsessive, driven, poetic, neurotic, celebratory. COMPULSIVE PRACTICE will demonstrate the place of technology, self-expression, critique, and community in the many decades and the many experiences of artists and activists living with AIDS.

Carolyn Lazard is a writer, film curator, and artist working in media and performance. Her work engages collective practice to address the ethics of wellness, dependency, and labor. Lazard has presented work in various spaces including Light Industry, the Poetry Project, Recess, Anthology Film Archives, the Arnolfini, and the New Museum. She’s published writing in the Brooklyn Rail and Mousse magazine. She is a founding member of the art collective Canaries (women and femme artists living with chronic illness) and the Harriet Tubman Collective (Black disabled and d/Deaf advocates and organizers). Lazard holds a B.A. from Bard college and she lives in the great city of Philadelphia.

Canadian-born Theodore (ted) Kerr is a Brooklyn-based writer and organizer whose work focuses on HIV/AIDS. He was the programs manager at Visual AIDS. He received his Masters from Union Theological Seminary where he studied Christian Ethics and HIV. He is a founding member of the What Would an HIV Doula Do?

COMPULSIVE PRACTICE is curated by Jean Carlomusto, Alexandra Juhasz, and Hugh Ryan. Participating video makers and artists include James Wentzy, Nelson Sullivan (1948-1989), Ray Navarro (1964-1990), Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot, Juanita Mohammed, Luna Luis Ortiz, Mark S. King, Justin B. Terry-Smith, and the Southern AIDS Living Quilt.

This event is free and open to the public. A reception in advance of the program will take place at 6PM.