Date:
Please join photographer Craig Bailey, Poet Philip Robinson, and Michèle Oshima for a commemoration of the subjects of "The Faces of the AIDS Crisis" photos in the Cooper Gallery's "Nine Moments for Now" exhibition on Friday, January 18 at 6 pm. We will have a reading of the texts accompanying each photo, which were written by close friends of each of the people in the photos; a reading of selections from Philip Robinson's collection of poetry, "We Still Leave A Legacy". Attendees will also be offered the opportunity to call the names of loved ones lost to AIDS, to offer personal recollections and stories about their experiences relating to the crisis years and to read poems from the classic anthologies "In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology", "The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets", "Brother to Brother", "Other Countries: Black Gay Voices" and more as we close with catharsis.
Read about Craig Bailey on his website.
About the Readers:
Philip Robinson is an award-winning poet, writer and activist. Philip’s second book of poems, We Still Leave a Legacy, debuted in 2010 and was revised in 2017; it deals in part with the many people who transitioned from HIV/AIDS. A silk-screened version of the title poem is a panel in the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. He is anthologized in The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets edited by the late Assoto Saint, and In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, edited by the late Joseph Beam. These two particular books were noteworthy as they explored the various challenges these writers faced to be both black and gay in modern America. These books also reflected the affirming power of coming together to build a strong Black gay community. Philip and his partner, Joseph Jackson, met in 1977 and have been in a union since 1981. They are both retired from Boston Public Schools and live in West Roxbury, MA.
Entrepreneur Michèle Oshima loves working as an intellectual matchmaker, connecting brilliant creative people. An out-of-the-box thinker, she is passionate about facilitating aha moments across disciplines and helping people realize their creative potential. Oshima is proud to have nurtured the collaboration between Michel Gondry and Noam Chomsky resulting in the documentary “Is the Man Who Is Tall, Happy?” She is a particularly fierce advocate for all genres of the contemporary arts. She has significant experience in both women’s studies and international business. As an academic adviser, advocate, counselor and administrator, Oshima has worked to build communities and create spaces where engagement with new information could thrive in academic areas, artistic expression, residential communities, and cultural practice. She has an exceptionally strong record of programmatic innovation and an uncanny ability to demonstrate intellectual matchmaking with faculty, staff, and students alike. Oshima is a Wellesley College alumna.