9 ON VIEW/ERIC AVERY: AIDS WORK STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: TARA SACERDOTE ’18 FOLLOWING MY SOPHOMORE YEAR, I INTERNED with Visual AIDS as a practical experience for my museums concentration. Visual AIDS is a New York-based arts nonprofit organization committed to HIV/AIDS advocacy. Among many other things, Visual AIDS facilitates art exhibitions and fosters conversations centering on HIV/ AIDS as an ongoing and continually relevant issue. Eric Avery: AIDS Work underscores these ideas of contemporaneity and it was an honor for me to support the continuation of this type of dialogue at Smith. As part of Smith College VOX (now known as Smith Students for Reproductive Justice), I helped to coordinate programming surrounding AIDS Work, including a small group discussion with Dr. Avery and VOX members as well as a public gallery tour and print- making workshop with the artist. Dr. Avery articulated a specific perspective on this issue, as an artist and a medical professional in his late 60s. His knowledge introduced a crucial intergenerational element to our discussions and prompted us to consider not only the lastingness of HIV/AIDS, but also the ways in which this crisis has changed and how the activism surrounding it has adapted. Activating the artwork through these programs expanded the exhibition and asked us to consider more deeply the centrality of art and artmaking as tools for activism and education. The programming in support of AIDS Work invited Smith students from different academic backgrounds to engage with one another. It was exciting to see my peers at Smith interested in the relationship between images and HIV/AIDS, a topic of interest to me because of my work with Visual AIDS. Re-energizing this conversation with new people, in a new place, was refreshing and inspiring. I was lucky enough to return to Visual AIDS for a second summer as a programs assistant to continue working at the intersection of art and HIV/AIDS. I am immensely grateful for the resources and support offered by SCMA staff—especially Charlene Shang Miller, for her encouragement and honesty. My engagement with Eric Avery: AIDS Work specifically, and with the museum generally, continues to shape my understanding of art’s central role in conversations surrounding critical social issues. of COMPULSIVE PRACTICE, a video compilation of compulsive, daily and habitual practices by artists and activists who live with their cameras as one way to manage, reflect upon and change how they are deeply affected by HIV/AIDS. VOX students led a discussion with peers following the screening of the video, which was produced by Visual AIDS. The museum’s collaboration with faculty and students was rich and resulted in programs relevant to the campus community and deep engagement with the exhibition. This installation was supported by the Louise Walker Blaney, class of 1939, Fund for Exhibitions and the Carlyn Steiner ‘67 and George Steiner Endowed Fund, in honor of Joan Smith Koch. For detailed information about the exhibition and related programs visit the Eric Avery: AIDS Work website: smith.edu/artmuseum/On-View/Past-Exhibitions