For Day With(out) Art 2025, Visual AIDS presented Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
The program features newly commissioned short videos by artists working across the world:
Camilo Tapia Flores (Chile/Brazil)
Camila Flores-Fernández (Peru/Germany)
Hoàng Thái Anh (Vietnam)
Kenneth Idongesit Usoro (Nigeria)
José Luis Cortés (Puerto Rico)
Gustavo Vinagre & Vinicius Couto (Brazil/Portugal)
Commissioned videos by artists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany, and Vietnam journey across a range of spaces revealing the complexity of drug use. Several videos document the visible world of drugs—a harm reduction program in a Berlin park, a night out during Rio’s Carnival—while others reveal private, often hidden spaces where safety is found: bedrooms, underground clinics, and moments of connection between lovers.
Meet Us Where We’re At speaks not only to the variety of physical locations where contemporary harm reduction is practiced, but also to a broader shift: centering drug users as authors of their own experiences. Rooted in the philosophy of meeting people at their personal reality without judgment, the program affirms the full context of drug use—its pleasures, its risks, and its role in how people survive, care, and connect.
Harm reduction has long been central to the AIDS movement through practices like needle exchange and safe injection sites, and people who use drugs have been affected by HIV since the earliest days of the epidemic. This program brings their perspectives to the forefront, amplifying the voices of drug users as storytellers, cultural producers, and essential participants in the global response to HIV.
The artists in this program were selected by a jury of artists/community workers including Eva Dewa Masyitha, Heather Edney, charles ryan long, and Leo Herrera.
Meet Us Where We’re At premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art on November 30, 2025 for World AIDS Day/Day With(out) Art, and also screened at 100+ museums, art institutions, and universities around the world. See a complete list of screening locations here.
Camilo Tapia Flores, Realce (Highlight), 2025
Realce is a documentary short following two HIV-positive friends, DJ Deseo and porn actor Fernando Brutto, during one of their performances at Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival. The duo move through the streets of Rio and Carnival “blocos,” sharing their reflections on friendship, undetectability, their relationship with sex, and drug use within their own community.
Commissioned in 2025 as part of Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
︎︎︎ Read more in the resource guide
About the artist
Camilo Tapia Flores (he/him) is a Latin American queer artist, journalist, and DJ whose work reflects his experience as HIV-positive, focusing on bringing HIV discussions into the spaces he inhabits. From 2019 to 2022, he actively collaborated with the JEVVIH association to promote HIV awareness on Chile’s public agenda. Now based in Rio de Janeiro, he continues his activism within the underground electronic scene, raising awareness through his art and presence in the community.
Camila Flores-Fernández, Ghost in the Park, 2025
Ghost in the Park traces the narratives of the community of Görlitzer Park, an area in Berlin known for public drug use and trade. Highlighting “drug consumption buses” that promote safer use and aim to reduce HIV transmission among drug users, the space of the bus is taken as an axis through which the experiences and feelings of the community around the park are amplified.
Commissioned in 2025 as part of Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
︎︎︎ Read more in the resource guide
About the artist
Camila Flores-Fernández (she/her) is a Peruvian researcher and artist currently based in Berlin. She holds an MSc in Cultural Anthropology (KU Leuven) and is a current MA student in the EMJMD Media Arts Cultures and Erasmus Mundus scholar. Her work centers around marginalized communities and employs ethnographic and collaborative methodologies.
Hoàng Thái Anh, The Sisters’ Journey, 2025
Through a documentary style, The Sisters’ Journey explores the daily life of a transgender woman in Vietnam using drugs. The film delves into her fear of stigma, struggles she faces, and the vital role of harm reduction services and healthcare available to her.
Commissioned in 2025 as part of Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
︎︎︎ Read more in the resource guide
About the artist
Hoàng Thái Anh (he/him) is an advocate for the health rights of marginalized communities in Vietnam, particularly transgender individuals, sex workers, and drug users affected by HIV. With a passion for storytelling through video, he collaborates with advisory boards, community members, and stakeholders to create impactful short films that highlight the challenges these communities face, focusing on healthcare access and harm reduction. His work ensures that their voices are heard and their experiences are authentically represented.
Kenneth Idongesit Usoro, Voices of Resilience, 2025
Voices of Resilience follows the lives of queer individuals and drug users living with HIV in Nigeria. Through personal interviews and experimental visual storytelling, the film shows the protagonists’ worlds as they seek out underground harm reduction services.
Commissioned in 2025 as part of Meet Us Where We’re At, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis.
︎︎︎ Read more in the resource guide