UNBECOMING = UNDYING

A reading encounter for six voices about living and dying in a pandemic. “Unbecoming = undying” is a two-part audio journey of a number of key texts and statements bearing witness to the personal and collective experiences relating to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Moving between the forms of podcast, rehearsal, and discussion, “Unbecoming = Undying” follows a live gathering of friends and peers re-voicing source texts and reflecting on their affective, personal and political resonance today. The selection of texts is born out of research into the AIDS journal genre and is accompanied by excerpts from zines, artists’ books and catalogues. The editorial work began remotely whilst in quarantine and these conditions are echoed both practically and theoretically throughout the production process.

Through the act of reading together, “Unbecoming = Undying” touches on themes of LGBTQ militancy, mobilisation, kinship, the intimate experience of illness, systemic exclusion, and how movement, migration, and the passing of time shape our understanding of these. A virus has been transmitted, not HIV but the virus of writing and reading aloud.