Arts
’Luminaria’ raises internal and communal awareness on World AIDS Day by Brandon Simes
Managing EditorWednesday Dec 2, 2009
Medicine Wheel’s 19th installation at the Cyclorama shows maturity
In its 19th year at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama, Medicine Wheel has lost none of its impact. In fact, thanks to a "building up" of the language of the annual installation, this year’s version, Luminaria, may speak to the issue of HIV/AIDS better than any of its moving predecessors.
The exhibit caught the attention of passersby as they strolled along Tremont Street on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, with a collection of white paper bags hosting poignant phrases and remembrances of loved ones and candles illuminating their presence from within-a theme on which artistic director Michael Dowling focused this year’s installation inside and out the Medicine Wheel. Luminaria, a 45-foot lantern made up of 650 faces printed on white canvass that encompasses 36 pedestals that form a circle of shrines filled with mementos of lost loved ones, followed anything but a linear path toward its completion.
"At first we thought the faces would be people who maybe had died from AIDS or suffered from AIDS and we sent out a call looking for photos and we didn’t really get much of a response," said Dowling. "I think part of it was awareness around AIDS is waning. People aren’t really looking at it as a death and dying disease so much anymore. And maybe it’s just too painful to sort of revisit those memories. Then I sort of made the decision to send out an invitation to collect people’s light, the light of a memory of somebody, the light of somebody who’s still in your life, the light of yourself, and if we could join those lights together, then we would have this giant Luminaria, this giant lantern, so I guess I started chasing people’s lights and that was actually easier because the truth is in 2009 all of our lives have been changed by AIDS whether we admit it or not."
Even after the second call, Dowling still needed more photographs to fill out the exhibit, so his team turned to the actual Medicine Wheel for inspiration.
"We still didn’t have enough photographs so we actually opened up the pedestals of Medicine Wheel, because every year people leave offerings to the shrines that have been put in the pedestals, and took out hundreds of photographs from the pedestals and used those as a memorial wall to people who had died and been lost to HIV and AIDS over the last 18 years that Medicine Wheel has been running," said Dowling.
The entire installation uses backlighting and internal lighting as a metaphor.
"There’s no light directed at any of it, the light is all coming from within," said Dowling. "The idea was to explore the light within us so we made the passageways behind the panel so that people actually could walk back there and add light to the lantern."
While Dowling handles the artistic direction, young artists and studio assistants handle much of the production of the actual installation each year. One of these young artists, Richie Dinsmore, spoke of the installation’s goal of raising awareness in a time when people have begun to fear HIV/AIDS less due to medical breakthroughs that have slowed the death march the disease drums.
"People kind of don’t really look at it as a problem anymore, I think, so it’s good to let people know that this is still going on, people are still dying from it, and it’s not going to go away. ... If you can save one person [through the installation], I think that’s worth it," said the 23-year-old South Bostonian, who spent time behind bars before being referred to Medicine Wheel Productions as part of his community service requirements. He later joined Dowling’s staff, jumping at the opportunity to earn a wage doing work he has grown to love.
"They helped me out a real lot with the important stuff. If I didn’t go there, I’d probably be back in jail, most likely. ... It’s nice to be actually doing good things instead of getting blamed for stuff," he said.
For studio assistant Jake Riley, whose father passed away two years ago from Leukemia, the change in direction from just those who have lost their lives to the epidemic to a more inclusive vision of the project, which displays faces of loved ones lost to other causes and many still living with or without the disease, has brought the language of Medicine Wheel to maturity.
"[Dowling’s] always developing the language of the organization, it’s kind of like a work in progress. He’s just been discussing art as a threshold, using art to create a threshold to allow ourselves to experience things that we normally wouldn’t experience through everyday life. Some people don’t get a chance to, and Luminaria’s kind of a way that we can do that, create a threshold to our own light, and allow people to access and see that and participate in it, and kind of pay a tribute to that and have their own personal, unique experiences through the art," said the 20-year-old, who paired up with Medicine Wheel Productions after a push from the Cushing House, a treatment home in South Boston that helps young people with substance abuse issues.
Awareness remains the central component of World AIDS Day for Riley.
"Some people aren’t even aware of the date-I probably wasn’t until recently either," he said. "The first reaction is ’Oh, well I don’t know anyone with AIDS, it doesn’t affect me.’ So I guess, in a way, we’re trying to change that perception. It does affect you whether you know it or not."
The theme of life throughout its path along the wheel extended outside the physical circle to a complementary exhibit, a giant embryo reminiscent of Nirvana’s "In Utero" cover, by Agathi Pavlidis, a senior at the Art Institute of Boston. Like the rest of Medicine Wheel, the exhibit was participatory, as attendees entered the giant embryo and rested on the circular bedding within the structure. Pavlidis said her experiences working with Dowling led to her extending herself as an artist and creating the work.
"He really just lets you explore yourself as an artist," she said. "He’s there for guidance but he’s really just giving you an opportunity to kind of test boundaries and delve into a project head on. The best way to learn is to have these challenges, and you’re not going to really know what they are and how to deal with them unless you actually do them. So he’s just really giving you an opportunity to learn through experience."
She said the conjoined nature of the Luminaria-a visual backdrop for assorted performances throughout the day-inspired her: "There are all these kind of different emotions being splayed out for me anyway, that I’m experiencing. ... It made me realize how much I love art and all forms of it."
As the economy has soured over the past few years, Dowling says the challenges of continuing to spread awareness have mounted, and he hopes South Enders will help the program continue into its third decade. Donations can be sent via mail to Medicine Wheel Productions; 110 K Street; Boston, 02127, or made by phone at 617.268.6700. For more information, visit www.mwproductions.org.
"The money aspect, it gets harder and harder to fund," he said, adding that with paying young artists like Riley and Dinsmore and renting the Cyclorama, costs run between $50,000 or $60,000 for the project. "People love having it here, but economically it’s very, very difficult for a small nonprofit to produce a project of this magnitude without funding, so my hand is always out."
Outside, from the ground
Poignant phrases such as "Does your fellow citizen have health care?" and "Enjoy the rain for me" joined with the many facial expressions that showed the breadth of human emotion to evoke a stirring response inside and out Medicine Wheel on World AIDS Day.
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