By Heather Monahan
Assistant Features Editor
It’s time for the season where people are overcome with the spirit of giving which accompanies the most wonderful time of the year. This week, students around St. Bonaventure have been doing just that for National AIDS Awareness Week.
The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts teamed up with various organizations on campus to host events this week leading up to the National Day With(out) Art tomorrow. Day With(out) Art began in 1989 when AIDS began affecting artistic communities. Museums and galleries would lock their doors and completely shut down as a symbolic gesture of respect to those who were dying in their community.
Sean Conklin, assistant curator at the Quick Center, said the day evolved when museums, and galleries began sending their staff to volunteer on the Day With(out) Art.
“They started volunteering in Homeless Shelters and LGBT Youth Outreach,” Conklin said. “Then it kind of moved out of just New York City, and people started thinking this is something we can all get involved in. It became recognized as a global pandemic.”
The name for National Day With(out) Art came when artists began exposing their struggles with AIDS and responding to their disease by creating artwork. Changing the name to the Day With Art was prompted by the idea of there always being a way to move forward.
This theme was prevalent in the works of artists affected by the disease. According to Conklin, brackets were then placed around the word “out” so the day could be called either Day Without Art or Day With Art.
Conklin said while this is the first year Bonaventure has participated in AIDS Awareness Week, it’s something he’s wanted to be a part of for a while. Bonaventure gave him the tools necessary to participate in the national week of awareness.
“The one thing we see is that Bona students are really involved with a lot of stuff and I think that’s great,” he said. “So I was like, here’s another thing if you want to be involved. And I got a great response.”
Conklin was able to reach out to groups on campus and gain support from them.
Spectrum, St. Bonaventure’s LGBT group, offered to hold a bake sale. The group is working with Conklin to decide where to donate the proceeds from the fundraiser.
“We’re going to decide if we want to auction it off or if they want to donate half of it to LGBT Youth of Outreach, or specifically Children with AIDS. Or if we want to just do an AIDS research fund as a group,” he said.
monahahm10@bonaventure.edu
