Press Release: Exhibition “Metanoia Online”
CONTACT:
Jennifer Gregg, [email protected] Executive Director, One Institute
One Institute
ANNOUNCES NEW EXHIBIT “METANOIA ONLINE”
WEB EXHIBIT LAUNCHED ON FEBRUARY 24, 2021 METANOIA.ONEARCHIVES.ORG
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Los Angeles, CA (March 2, 2021) — One Institute announces the launch of Metanoia Online, an interactive web exhibit that provokes and explores the question: What happens when we center HIV history around Black women’s experience and contributions to AIDS Activism?
Metanoia Online — launched February 24, 2021 — is created by One Institute with curatorial guidance from Katherine “Kat” Cheairs, creative direction from our Director of Content Strategy Umi Hsu, and design and production support by our Exhibitions Intern Fati Zulaikha.
Metanoia Online is the third instantiation of the exhibition first launched at the LGBT Center in New York City (Winter 2019) and at the ONE Gallery, West Hollywood (January 2020). The original exhibition Metanoia: Transformations through AIDS Archives and Activism is curated by Katherine Cheairs, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore (ted) Kerr, and Jawanza Williams for What Would an HIV Doula Do? (WWHIVDD). From the Curators’ Statement: “Metanoia is an archival examination of community-based responses to the ongoing AIDS crisis. The exhibition highlights the contributions of Black cis and trans women, and cis and trans women of color impacted by HIV, many of whom have had experiences within the criminal justice system.”
Metanoia Online features media content previously unavailable at the in-gallery shows in New York City and Los Angeles. With an interactive inquiry-based design, this guided web experience with curatorial writings also showcases posters, newsletters, pamphlets, and other activist ephemera from the LGBT Center National History Archive’s holdings as well as those of ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.
Curator Katherine “Kat” Cheairs said of the exhibit, “Metanoia Online mirrors the feeling of engaging with the intimacies experienced through encounters in the archive. It is so thrilling to see the stories of Joann Walker, Katrina Haslip, and contemporary activists be made available to inspire others in the same ways that we, the curators, have been.”
Also new in this web exhibit is a multimedia documentary series with photos and audio recordings from interviews of five women in New York City currently working on issues related to HIV & AIDS, conducted by Lolita Lens Photography. A more recent photo-audio documentary series by Black Queen Photography highlighting four Los Angeles-based HIV/AIDS activists is also included.
“Metanoia Online is emblematic of the journey of healing justice, from an awakening through various manifestations of personal and collective power.” said Umi Hsu, Director of Content Strategy at One Institute. “To activate this feeling of transformation, we foreground process in the design. With spaciousness and asymmetry, we invite inquiries and slow reflections in order to unleash potential feelings of empowerment among each viewer. Not a history didactic, this intimate web experience honors and reanimates the spirit of activists across generations.”
View Metanoia Online: https://metanoia.onearchives.org
Metanoia Online is supported by an Arts Internship grant from the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.
About One Institute
Founded in 1952, One Institute is the oldest active LGBTQ organization in the United States, and is dedicated to telling the accurate stories & history of all LGBTQ people and their culture. As an independent nonprofit, One Institute promotes ONE Archives at the USC Libraries — the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world — and provides innovative educational initiatives, public exhibitions and community programs. Learn more, donate and become a member at onearchives.org, and connect with ONE on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @onearchives.
A PDF of this Press Release can be dowloaded here.
Image: “Joann Walker.” Noelle Hanrahan. Newspaper Clipping. “To Die in Chowchilla,” 1994. San Francisco Bay Guardian. Judy Greenspan Papers, The LGBT Community Center National History Archive. Design by Kate Yeongjeong An and Fati Zulaikha.
