CURBED: An activist art installation is coming to Manhattan

A World AIDS Day art installation will take place at the AIDS Memorial, in Manhattan, and will include works by contemporary artist Jenny Holzer and designer Lewis Miller. | John Moore, Circular Space Photography

Trucks towing illuminated billboards aren’t unusual to see on New York City streets. But on December 1, a fleet of them will carry a special message: The AIDS epidemic, and fight against it, continues.

For World AIDS Day, the contemporary artist and activist Jenny Holzer will turn the city into a performance piece by dispatching roving billboards featuring quotes about the epidemic from people living with HIV and/or AIDS, artists, activists, poets, and educators. It’s part of #LightTheFight, an event that commemorates World AIDS Day and celebrates the launch of the NYC AIDS Memorial Arts and Education Initiative, a program that will support artwork that honors people who have been affected by HIV and/or AIDS, from caregivers to activists and people who have died from related illnesses.

While AIDS epidemic is no longer front-page news and medicine has advanced so that a diagnosis isn’t life-threatening, it’s still a global health crisis. Over 39 million of people around the world are living with HIV. In 2017, 940,000 people died from AIDS-related complications and 1.8 million people became newly infected.