PRO_CU•
RAR-SE
Artivist project · 2021–2023
Artivist project · 2021–2023
An ongoing artistic project by Vinicius Couto about the stigmas carried by people living with HIV. The name plays on Portuguese words: “PROCURA-SE” — wanted, criminalized — and “PRÓ-CURAR-SE” — toward healing, an act of care. The project proposes activities that make these stigmas visible and help dismantle sexual and social taboos.
A roughly three-month research and production residency at the Etopia art and technology centre, curated by Mônica Hirano, closing with the artist's first solo exhibition. The period included round tables on HIV and technology (later released as a podcast) and the premiere of the performance Remoto Controle, in which the audience directs the artist's movements remotely via video call — a work about systems of surveillance.
A site-specific installation and durational performance at Casa Independente and Largo do Intendente: the artist undresses his stigma, revealing a body stamped with the pejorative term, while removing the labels from 250 medicine bottles — labels carrying HIV/AIDS information centred on the message U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable).
A multidisciplinary residency gathering more than 30 artists, activists and researchers: installations and site-specific works across the venue and the square, a conversation circle on chemsex, performances (Vinicius Couto, Zaya, Toní Omulu), DJ sets and workshops.
Corpo Lucrativo Positivo Exposto — a performance of sounds made with medicine bottles, denouncing silence. Remoto Controle — a performance about surveillance, directed by the audience via video call. Atravessamentos — a collective installation on the concepts of community, immunity and contagion, developed at the Linha de Fuga residency (Coimbra, 2022).
““PROCURA-SE” as in wanted, criminal. “PRÓ-CURAR-SE” as in healing, an act of care — an artistic project that makes visible the stigmas carried by people living with HIV.”
Vinicius Couto — esQrever, 2023 (translated)