A coalition of artists, activists, and local officials invite the Greater Boston community to join a Days Without Art Healing Walk on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 30. The procession will move from Boston City Hall to the Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama to formally open SPOKE’s 30th Annual World AIDS Day art installation and vigil at midnight Dec. 1, marking the effects of multiple pandemics on the community.
Who: SPOKE, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that activates art to heal, overcome difference, and build social cohesion; Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture; Office of Recovery Services; Office of Neighborhood Services, et al.
What: Days Without Art Healing Walk: Greater Bostonians of all backgrounds will join artists, dancers, musicians, friends, and collaborators in a procession from City Hall to the Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama. Following a brief opening program, participants will walk from City Hall, holding electric lanterns and a 150-foot stream of red satin, evoking the AIDS Red Ribbon and the beauty of the thread of connection, to the BCA.
Where: Gather in front of Boston City Hall, 1 City Hall Square; end at Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116
When: Tuesday, Nov. 30, 10:45 p.m.
Why: On December 1, SPOKE presents Days Without Art, its 30th annual World AIDS Day installation and vigil at the Cyclorama. This year’s program is entitled Touched: In Times of Pandemic, a multimedia series of cultural actions that illustrate the healing power of human contact and the pain of its absence.
“In this 30th year Days Without Art takes on new resonance as we face multiple pandemics: Covid-19, addiction, violence, and racism,” says Michael Dowling, SPOKE Founder & Artistic Director. “We invite the community to share this creative experience with us.”
Days Without Art originated in 1992 as the “Medicine Wheel” installation in response to the ravages of the AIDS epidemic. Each year since SPOKE has mounted a 24-hour vigil & art installation on World AIDS Day where people from all backgrounds come to remember, reflect, and grieve as a community while artists present prayers, poetry and spoken word, dance, music, and ritual. This year’s Days Without Art installation will comprise more than 500 individually crafted works of memorial fabric art, which will be installed at the Cyclorama alongside 30 sections of the historic AIDS/ Names Memorial Quilt, the only Boston venue for this unique work.
