to

The dictionary definition of treatment is ‘the medical care given to a patient for an illness or injury’. Treatment is also the process by which certain materials are worked on to turn them into something else, such as the treatment of a metal or textile. Treat also means to behave towards or deal with someone in a certain way. In the field of medicine, complementary treatments are unrecognised (and often disparaged) substances or practices that fall outside the clinical sphere. In the context of Aids Anarchive, the term treatment captures the possibility of saying something through documents and materials and paying attention to possible “side effects”.

This study group was set up as a practical space to consider a series of crosscutting issues in the Aids Anarchive exhibition from complementary perspectives in dialogue with participants’ shared interests.

The name of the study group, Complementary Treatments, comes from a subgroup of Act Up Barcelona made up of people interested in playing an active role in their HIV/Aids treatment. Rejecting the idea that “there’s nothing to be done about it”, the group encompassed unconventional healthcare perspectives ranging from natural medicine to a holistic vision of the body. The techniques and knowledge put into practice by the group included natural nutrition and naturopathy, shiatsu and visualisation as healing tools.

This study group carries on from earlier initiatives designed to explore and debate political management of the body and its representation, including the Health/Knowledge/Power programme of conversations and debates held in parallel to the Aids Anarchive exhibition in Tabakalera, San Sebastián, in 2016. This initiative activated a shared network of practical knowhow on political management of the body and took the form of debates ranging from HIV/Aids to ecology, food, functional diversity, the legal system and migration. Many of the matters touched on appeared in the Body Politics programme carried out by Equipo re in 2011–2012 at different locations in Chile in close collaboration with local groups and spaces.

This initiative will be carried out in ten sessions, from 17 October 2018 to 3 April 2019, rooted in specific cases, questions and reflections gathered from a range of materials (texts, documents, video).

At the start of each session, Equipo re will present a series of subjects and materials linked to Aids Anarchive with the aim of sparking open dynamics that will take on board the interests, references and debates thrown up by the group. The sessions will be recorded in a twofold manner: in each session we will carry out a collective exercise of “jotting down concepts”, followed by group synthesis of the debates and activities carried out.

For posterity, over the ten sessions we will either make a series of notebooks covering specific subjects or create an overarching publication in multiple narrative formats (visual and written).

Aimed at people interested in subjects and concepts such as HIV today, health policies, health rules, contemporary unease, cures, lives that matter and museums and archives, among others.

By Equipo re: Aimar Arriola, Nancy Garín and Linda Valdés

Co-organised by:

L'Internationale. Our Many Europes. Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
 

Our Many Europes is a programme by the European museum confederation "L'Internationale" and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The members of L'Internationale (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Moderna Galerija (MG+msum), Ljubljana, Van Abbemuseum, The Netherlands, MACBA, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie, SALT Research and programs Istanbul and Ankara, and Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid) and its partners National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin and Valand Academy (Gothenburg University) are presenting more than 40 public activities (conferences, exhibitions,workshops) from now and until May 2022.

The Carryng Society "Sabes si… Prospecciones # 700-738", 1997, stills de vídeo, Cortesía de Arteleku – Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa

Programme

FROM WEDNESDAY 7 OF NOVEMBER
Venue:
CED's ground floor
Admission: Free
Time: from 6.30 to 8.30 pm
Dates: 7 and 28 November; 12 December; 9 and 30 January; 20 February; 13 March; 3 and 24 April; 8 May


Exhibition