1,000 m2 of desire
Tour de force
A performance by Joan Morey about the history of AIDs/HIV and its relation with the city
Free
“Tour de Force” is a site-specific performance by the artist Joan Morey that traces poetic routes through the short history of AIDs since its appearance and conversion into a pandemic at the end of the last century to the paraphilia generated around the transmission and spread of the virus that causes it, HIV.
“Tour de Force” looks at the way HIV/AIDs is considered socially and shows how the disease triggered the recovery of old mechanisms of control of the body, desire and sexuality in a movement back and forth between the modern and the contemporary individual. The performance is based on the different stages of HIV/AIDs in the “sexual libertinage” of a male homosexual Western society, with the aim of exploring other aspects related with the virus or the disease, ranging from the stigmatisation and isolation of the people affected by AIDs to the possible undetectability of the virus thanks to today’s clinical research and self-care.
This series of situations acquires another dimension when seropositive individuals enter the control mechanisms associated with healthcare systems, or when we analyse how law and policies on AIDs in different countries seriously affect mobility and international migration. These are all contemporary circumstances with a major social, political and economic impact that have prompted new cosmogonies of desire around the infection and even the pharmacological construction of a utopian body.
Functioning and attendance of the public
“Tour de Force” takes the form of a prologue and five acts. The prologue takes place in the Pati de les Dones courtyard and the Mirador of the CCCB and is open to the adult public, subject to registration (until Wednesday 1 March). The five acts, with the participation of a limited number of spectators, take the form of five parallel itineraries in different places in Barcelona.
At the end of the performance, participants can make a free visit to the exhibition “1000 m² of Desire. Architecture and Sexuality” guided by researcher Esther Fernández and architect Àlex Giménez.
It is a coproduction by the Han Nefkens Foundation and the CCCB in the framework of the exhibition “1,000 m2 of Desire”. With the collaboration of the Epidemiology Service of the Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona and IDEP Barcelona.
Directors: Joan Morey
This activity is part of 1,000 m2 of desire
