Program Director Joseph Varisco, of Salonathon and the former Alphawood Gallery, has announced the "Queer, Ill + Okay" summer 2018 program of arts programming in partnership with multidisciplinary artist Kia LaBeija.
"Queer, Ill + Okay," now in its fifth year, returns in an attempt to explore and better understand how people are living with HIV/AIDS.
The programs are as follows:
—"Community Conversation: Kia LaBeija + Kristiana Rae Colon," Thursday, June 21, at 6:30 p.m., at Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.; tickets at www.facebook.com/events/248032605777293: This intimate discussion will investigate the tokenization of identities ( Blackness, queerness, HIV+ ) in an age of commercial activism. HIV testing partners Howard Brown Health join to provide free tests.
—"Kia LaBeija at Dyke March Chicago," Saturday, June 23, at 5:30 p.m., at Little Village's Piotrowski Park, 4247 W. 31st St.; tickets and details at www.facebook.com/events/257708284800365/: "Queer, Ill + Okay" will join community partner Dyke March Chicago for the 22nd Annual Dyke March in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. The post-march festival will include QIO sponsors Modern Cannabis' ( MOCA ) 'Get A Card' information booth, free HIV testing with Howard Brown Health, QIO alumni Felix D. Rojas AKA Laser Slut, and opening performance by McKenzie Chinn of Growing Concerns Poetry Collective.
A full calendar of events will be released for public July 1.
