WARNING: EXPLICIT IMAGERY AND COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE.

 

- Jorge Luis Borges, “Ars Poetica”

At times in the evenings a face
Looks at us out of the depths of a mirror;
Art should be like that mirror
Which reveals to us our own face.

 

"Me, Myself, I" by Rachel Chapple, PhD (Founder, Real Stories Gallery Foundation)

As long as institutions and individuals fail to understand how thoroughly the creation of fear surrounding ‘the naked human body’ permeates the very underpinnings of cultural thought and practice, then despite all the good will in the world, catastrophes such as today's HIV pandemic that affect the health and well-being of millions of social human beings will continue to happen.  And intentions, particularly the good ones, will continue to pave the way to hell. 

Nervousness.  The grammar of nervousness. Whole professions are dedicated to extrapolating meaning and nuance; delving and poking and tweaking and repositioning what is said, what is meant, what it means if a person uses the ME or the I or the MYSELF.  This facet of human creativity, the ability to multiple from such focus, serves to illustrate the fantastic ingenuity of the human mind.  The literary choice made by a storyteller may be used as evidence of knowledge, or an extreme testament of ignorance.  Even, as witness to a person’s authority, or lack thereof.  So it is that human ingenuity has led to a sense of nervousness for the visual storyteller, who seeks to state emphatically that the creation of fear and anxiety embracing perceptions and behaviours associated with the transmission of HIV, is a huge wrong doing.  And has also prevented  the transmission of much effective knowledge that could alleviate the trauma of human rights abuses.

When seeking to share a personal experience - ME, MYSELF, I - to raise awareness of what it feels like to be persecuted, the grammar revealing a person’s existence serves as sophisticated heuristic device for reflection on who we are and who would like to be.  As our health and well-being is directly related to the health and well-being of the community surrounding us, whether we happen to be well or ill, the art of visual storytelling also plays a useful role here.  For it affords for a reflection on identity(s) in relation to HIV, whether we happen to be well or ill.  The art of visual storytelling when sharing the experience of the ME, the I and the MYSELF offers a glimpse into our humanity.

Yet as we have seen and experienced repeatedly, things are not so simple.  For such a messenger may find himself standing at the gates of re-appropriation by a stranger. And one who intentionally, or perhaps, it is hoped by the storyteller, unintentionally, bullies and belittles, stifles and silences either the messenger, the message or both.  The consequences of which, intentionally/accidently, perpetuate further cruelty in the form of human rights abuse (perceptions and behaviours recognised, often instinctively, by ordinary human beings across world communities as inflicting trauma, shame, prejudice, so on and so on...).

Real Stories does not seek to offend people whose lives are affected by HIV. Indeed, our intention is the exact opposite.  The transmission of HIV and the perceptions and behaviours of social sexually active human beings are closely entwined, and also bear a close relationship with a battery of human rights abuses (inflicted during the transmission of HIV to lack of access to appropriate healthcare).  One of the easiest ways for HIV transmission is via the exchange of bodily fluids between two social sexually active human beings.  The secrecy and taboo veiling this relationship is thickened with an extrapolation of meaning and nuance.  It is within this context, and with an acute awareness of the dangers, fear, secrecy and taboo entwined with concepts of HIV and the social sexually active human body, that Real Stories inhabits. The challenges for the contemporary visual storyteller in this focus are BIG.

The consequence of being aware of the seriousness and complexity constituting the portraiture of our lives within such a focus, sometimes leads many men, women adolescents and children to turn, run even, away.  Or, to remain silent in the hope that someone else, some responsible adult in a position to ratify Conventions and Treaties and Enforce Abuses, perhaps; someone else may step up and deal with it ALL.  There are many many people working flat out on the front-lines.  However, there is still much to do.  Just imagine if everyone whose heart speaks to them and who instinctively feels it is wrong, pitched in - it will make a profound difference to the lives of those most vulnerable within our neighbourhoods. 

Real Stories Gallery believes and states clearly with all the ME - MYSELF - I we can muster, that adults and minors do have the RIGHT to raise awareness and to explore a way forward through examining who we are and who we would like to be. We feel strongly there are also times when it is extremely important to say as clearly as possible:  "This is what I mean.  Please hear me out, because what is taking place is a huge wrong doing."  So we welcome all our friends in the creation of this space for the voices of the most vulnerable within our communities to be heard, rather than drowned out in the multiple chattering of prevention.  We would like to thank the contemporary Video Artist Raymond Fils; who despite his youth (18 years old), has chosen not to remain silent and has taken much personal risk in sharing his story here today with complete strangers.  With extreme thought and skill, he has chosen to begin an unpinning of the grammar of nervousness that secures the blindfold of fear associated with HIV and the sexual human body.  And so doing he is, with much sensitivity and compassion, questioning the huge wrong doing taking place in the communities surrounding him.

 

Tim Barrus and I were looking for ways to create video shorts that would give kids in Show Me Your Life ideas and options as to what they might do in video to create visual metaphors of their lives. But Tim has taught me that if your ideas take over while you are filming, then you have to follow them to see what artistic shadows they are about because they are the images that tell the story of our lives. This is almost nine minutes long where the shorts we were originally going to do would have been a minute at the most. But once you get the camera in your hands, you have to at least try to understand what it is trying to tell you. I know that HIV has put my life at risk for a lot of things. But sometimes I forget that HIV is happening to a body. I am a human being whose story is about times, and places, and other people, and I am more than just a body. Human beings have layered stories. We are more than one story at a time. Our stories unfold on top of one another and within one another. We are different people to different people. HIV or no HIV, I am still someone who is in the world.

 

- a note from Tim Barrus (Director, Show Me Your Life; Founder, Cinemateque Films)

Raymond was mentoring the first student in Show Me Your Life, Moise, a young adolescent boy who lived in  the République Démocratique du Congo who was subject to a machete attack by Ugandan soldiers. Moise would die from his wounds. He might have lived, but his HIV status rendered him at-risk for infection. There were no antibiotics available that might have been able to deal with the infections. Moise and Raymond did not manage to get much video out that went to Moise showing us his life. I was the censor on that one and the images I deleted were of a young girl being raped by the same soldiers who would kill Moise.

And yet these images, difficult to look at, are part of the story of their lives.

Sometimes I wonder who I am protecting from the hate of the Moral American Taliban who would render most of the lives of children into Disneyfied images that have no relationship to the reality of how most children live in the real world. That world is one of extraordinary bullying, warfare, sexwork, HIV, malaria, a workweek of eighty hours in a sweatshop, addiction, starvation, and abuse. None of these issues can be divorced from any of the others. This IS how children live their lives. I have grown weary of deleting scenes that might upset the Moral American Taliban who would erase us and our stories if they could.

Raymond was deeply affected by the death of Moise. I did not think we would end up with short-minute video clips that would give insight into how to make a video. That is not really what we do. We are struggling to tell children to show us their lives and then when they do the subsequent screaming of outrage by adults who should know better ensues.

I am learning, too. What is important to show. What is important to construct as metaphor. What is important not to show.

Show me your life.

 

http://TIM@SHOWMEYOURLIFE.ORG

Show Me Your Life is an art program for Kids At-Risk. We started the program with video. But we have expanded that paradigm to now include work from kids at-risk to include mixed-media, photography, and collage in any form. Show Me Your Life takes the viewer on a journey through the lives of children who do not live in a Disneyland fantasy of what it means to grow up living rough. At-risk means things like homelessness, addiction, HIV, incarceration, sex work, and abuse. These are glimpses into landscapes very few ever see. We give video cameras to kids who have no access to them. Show Me Your Life tells story after story of kids who live mostly a marginalized, dangerous existence.  

 

Show Me Your Life's first student, Moise, from the République Démocratique du Congo, died in March 2011.   He is remembered by his friends around the world.

Real Stories Gallery would like to thank Raymond Fils (Cinemateque Films) for mentoring Moise during his time with Show Me Your Life. And, Jasha Arsov (Cinemateque Films) for sharing with us the significant ART Video he created, as a direct result of being nearby, despite the many thousands of miles of separation, to Moise's life. 

Moise died. Why, Tim, why. And not from AIDS but from his infected machete wound so in the end it was AIDS that became a warzone. I know he felt trapped. By the virus that is violence. By his survival and running. By seeing his family killed like that. By soldiers on one side and soldiers on the other side.

Moise and Jasha and Raymond's work, reminds us of the horror created by adult perceptions and behaviours, and experienced by too many young people today.  Real Stories Gallery believes adults are charged with the responsibility with working together to end the trauma,  to stand up to the bullies and censors of witness and  so doing create  an environment of guardianship in which the well-being and health of humanities' children becomes the URGENT priority.

 

Moise: Sur la rivière. Ces vidéos sont dangereux à faire. Je dois arrêter de les faire pendant quelques jours

 

Moise: refuge cage de bandes errantes de soldats rebelles.

 

Tim Barrus: The ongoing war and violence in the République Démocratique du Congo has caused the deaths of over five million people. This is now the deadliest conflict the world has seen since the end of the Second World War.

Rape and machete mutilation has been used as a weapon of war against hundreds of thousands of women. Village women are typically gang raped and their genitals are then cut and mutilated. Some women survive. Some don’t. Moise’s mother did not survive the attack on Mitanda, the village where Moise lived for all of his eleven years.

Moise speaks some French. He has been as far away as Kinshasha (formerly French Léopoldville) with his father, now deceased. Moise contacted us through a clinic where he has been a patient. Many people at WHO and other NGOs have heard about Show Me Your Life. The reason for this is because our MO of putting cameras in the hands of kids is almost revolutionary. Kids in schools everywhere have always created video. Not a new idea. But doing this with children who are directly involved in wars and children living on the streets has never been done the way we want to do it. Moise wanted to know if he could tell his story. He wants to show us his life. “Il pourrait faire une différence. Je ne sais pas.”

The United Nations’ peace-keeping force in the DRC is the largest peace-keeping force ever assembled by the UN. Yet it has not been effective at ending the war. Moise continues to be a survivor of that war and a refugee. The camp he was hiding in was attacked. Moise does not know by who. To Moise, the people who commit this violence are all the same. The medical personnel who facilitated Moise in contacting us explained that Moise was the one forced to rape and kill his mother in front of the family. Then Moise was raped and cut which is why he sought medical attention. Moise was left for dead by the males (some were boys themselves) who committed this crime.

This is right up there with all the numbers estimated around human trafficking as being totally limited to females. It continues to astound me that men and boys are being raped where rape is, indeed, a weapon of war, and terror (raping a boy will easily perforate his bowel, and he’s as good as dead), and we pretend it’s not happening. It is happening. Boys are being trafficked and raped. And rape is being used as a mechanism to conduct biological warfare in the form of HIV. The war in République démocratique du Congo is particularly vicious. I was becoming a part of the problem. I was not going to tell you about Moise being gang raped in front of his family while they were forced to watch. Or be shot to death. They were shot to death anyway. Moise was only hacked up with a machete.

The rebels — they are actually Ugandan soldiers — must counting bullets. The hardest thing I do is trying to decide how to protect any particular kid. I am not protecting kids by falling into the trap of we cannot discuss the hush hush. The tables are easily turned in any war. Moise could have given the men who raped him HIV. I knew things were tough out there. I deal with street kids, homeless kids, whores, thieves, the addicted; all the usual. So I am aware of how tough it can get. But when you add war into that mix, the whole tumultuous universe sort of proves Einstein wrong. Everything is chaos.

Moise will be on the run again. He has not healed from his wounds yet, and the medical people suspect HIV in cases where multiple family members were raped (it’s a numbers game). HIV is now being used as one more weapon of war. Essentially the genocide of the War in Rwanda has simply spilled over into the DCR (never a beacon of stability) where it continues unabated. The legacy left by the Tutsis and the Hutus has been one of mass slaughter. The République Démocratique du Congo was the next logical place this conflict would leak into like a disease itself.

I would argue that it is a crime against humanity to rape either men or women and use HIV as a biological weapon. I am going through Moise’s Quicktime video clips to see if there is anything I can convert into a still. It is difficult stuff to look at. I cannot imagine surviving it. He is not quite out of the woods yet. They can hear gunfire from the clinic.

 

Raymond: This is for Moise who lives in the République Démocratique du Congo. I am Raymond. I am your video mentor at The Studio. The video you have sent me is shocking. I have never seen a human being beheaded before. At first, I did not know what to say. I do not see how we can show a human being beheaded by soldiers. I am sorry. I am sorry you had to see this. I am sorry you are trying to run from these soldiers. Here is what I think we can do. I think I can try to get some still photography from this video. It is very dramatic. I will do that and we can still tell this story that you are fleeing soldiers, who are raping and killing people village to village. I am praying for you to live. You need to know that I will always tell you the truth. This project was designed for something less than this. But we need to know this is happening in your part of the world. That does not mean I know how to make what photographs we will come up with important. But I will try. Please be as safe as possible. I am in awe of your ability to survive this. Your friend, Raymond.

Moise died in March 2011.

 

 

"Cornered" by Jasha Arsov (Tim Barrus & Cinemateque Films)

I am always feeling cornered. By death. By the life that encircles me with walls and cubicles and boxes and the weight of history and the gravitas (translator’s word) of definitions and old dead bones. I feel trapped in languages and with Tim translating; Tim writing it down as we attempt to work together and bridge what is human to the two of us — Tim, what does this mean please write it down I do not understand — what death means and what life means now and me hearing but I do not know what anyone means anymore. Moise died. Why, Tim, why. And not from AIDS but from his infected machete wound so in the end it was AIDS that became a warzone. I know he felt trapped. By the virus that is violence. By his survival and running. By seeing his family killed like that. By soldiers on one side and soldiers on the other side. This video is for Moise. I learned a lot from you. Tim says learn one. Do one. Teach one. This is the doing. I do not know what “Cornered” says. The video is my voice. The images themselves are only stories. Narratives like the Russian doll inside the doll inside the doll inside the smiling doll. It’s all a prison. We are imprisoned. We all have bars that keep us caged. I grew up disassembling all those dolls. Now, I only want to reconstruct them so I can understand what was actually on the inside. It doesn’t really matter if Tim screws up with translations. It’s only important that we see what was on the inside of the doll is the doll. There are no answers to a Russian mystery. That is what HIV and AIDS are to most Russians. Another mystery and maybe it is not real. We suspect everything. To only reveal a litany of dolls that that are pulled from my bad dreams of being chased and scars and outer shells. I told Moise he would have great scars when he healed. But then he said, “They will kill me.” Yes. I have searched among the ragged sycamores. I have pushed the memories away into the forgotten blue room. The real war is to learn to cherish whatever moments we have whether we are running from a group of soldiers or escaping the prison inside the prison inside the prison’s walls. It is all a trap. There is no escape but one. I do hope Moise found his.

"Загнанный" по Яша Арсов (Тим Баррус и синематека Фильмы)
Я всегда чувствовал загнанным в угол. По смерти. По жизни, что окружает меня со стенами и кабин и ящиков и вес историей и авторитетом (слова переводчика) определений и старые мертвые кости. Я чувствую себя в ловушке языках и с Тимом перевод; Тим не записывал, как мы пытаемся работать вместе и мостов, что является человеческим, чтобы двое из нас - Тим, что это означает пожалуйста, запишите его я не понимаю - что такое смерть средств и что жизнь означает теперь и меня слышать, но я не знаю, что кто-либо средства больше. Мойше умер. Почему, Тим, почему. И не от СПИДа, а от его инфицированных мачете раны так в конце концов она была СПИДа, который стал Warzone. Я знаю, что он чувствовал в ловушке. По вирус, который является насилие. По его выживания и работает. Увидев его семьи убили, как это. По солдат на одной стороне и солдат на другой стороне. Это видео для Мойше. Я многому научился от вас. Тим говорит научиться одному. Выполните одно. Научите один. Это делает. Я не знаю, что "Загнанный", говорит. Видео это мой голос. Изображения сами только истории. Рассказы, как русская кукла внутри куклы внутри куклы внутри улыбается куклу. Это все тюрьмы. Мы заключены в тюрьму. У всех нас есть бары, которые держат нас клетке. Я вырос разборки все эти куклы. Теперь, я только хочу, чтобы восстановить их, чтобы я мог понять, что на самом деле внутри. Это действительно не имеет значения, если Тим винты с переводами. Это только важно, что мы видим, что на внутренней стороне кукла куклы. Есть нет ответов на русской тайной. Это то, что ВИЧ и СПИД для большинства россиян. Еще одна загадка и, возможно, это не реально. Мы подозреваем, что все. Чтобы выявить только перечисление куклы, которые, которые вытащил из моего плохого мечты о том, чеканка, шрамы и внешних оболочек. Я сказал Мойше он бы большие шрамы, когда он исцелил. Но потом он сказал: "Они убьют меня." Да. Я искал среди оборванных платанами. Я толкнул воспоминания далеко в голубой комнате забыл. Настоящая война, чтобы научиться ценить все моменты мы имеем ли мы бежим от группы солдат или избежать тюрьмы в тюрьму в стенах тюрьмы. Все это ловушка. Существует нет выхода, кроме одного. Я надеюсь, Мойше нашел.

 

Sexual abuse survivors are more likely to participate in activities that increase their risk for unintended pregnancy (self and partner) and infection with HIV and other STDs (sexually transmitted diseases).  Youth who run away or are forced out of the home are especially vulnerable because of their participation in survival sex, prostitution and/or drug use.  Several studies indicate more than half of all sex workers are sexual abuse survivors.

In many countries, the intentional or reckless infection of a person with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is considered to be a crime.  People who do so can be charged with criminal transmission of HIV, murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, or assault.  Some states have enacted laws expressly to criminalize HIV transmission, as in the United States, while others charge under the existing laws, as in the United Kingdom.

Each year, up to 20 million people worldwide attempt to commit suicide, with about a million of these completing the act...  In our own species, suicide usually means deliberately trying to end our psychological existence—or at least this particular psychological existence ( Jesse Bering Oct 11, 2010). Individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDS have been found to have increased risk for suicide... (niv.gov)

 

"Maelstrom" by Tim Barrus

 

Tim Barrus (Founder, Cinematique Films)

A  residential 24/7 art program that serves as a safe house protection for adolescents boys with HIV/AIDS, who are also at risk for psychological, neurological, and developmental disabilities due to sexual abuse, gang violence, addiction, human trafficking, and cyclical prostitution.

The boys are reached and educated through painting, music, photography, video, film, dance, poetry, mentoring, and intensive counseling.

The idea of a safe house is fundamentally based on the dynamics of protection from what brought them here. Witnesses of a time and of a place. While the boys are very connected to the outside world through the interactive use of technology, their contact with that world is monitored in such as way as to prevent contact and/or relationships with abusers, pedophiles, and people from their past who would harm them.

The boys are encouraged to utilize such features as banning within the context of social networks. Communications with the boys that are deemed as sexual invites will be banned immediately. Stalking, either physical or electronic, will not be tolerated and is specifically prohibited by EU law. Stalking is defined by us as seeking contact with boys who have either banned people or have requested that they be left alone. Any subsequent attempt to either arrange to physically meet a boy or continue electronic communication is reported to EU authorities.

Attempts to communicate with the boys that involve asking them questions about their personal lives, histories, relationships, legal status, physical whereabouts, private email addresses, or sexual preferences are regarded as stalking and will be dealt with accordingly.

We are a SAFE environment where boys at risk learn to empower themselves through the self-actualization and educational modalities of art.

Cinematheque Films : Arts Education: Students are allowed access to fair use art materials and mixed media in the teaching of iconic manipulation in photographic, video and film production. Representations and facsimiles posted here are presented as teaching tools and instruments employed to instruct students in the techniques and application of mixed media art and collage. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows art-teaching entities the fair use of such materials in classroom and teaching-research applications.

**Please Note: No Boys were harmed during the creation and re-creation of this visual poetry.