News + Events

Poetry Collaboration Project – with ViiV Healthcare

28/07/2022

Be part of a performance poem that aims to improve quality of life for people living with HIV

“The poem will be built up with the words, voices, and video footage of people who have a lived experience of living with HIV.”

Victorian poet, writer and queer spoken word artist Fleassy Malay has been approached by ViiV Healthcare to craft a poem for performance that can give nurses, allied health professionals and doctors some thoughts around how they can help the people living with HIV they see in their clinical practice have a better quality of life.
 ‘As someone who does not knowingly live with HIV personally, or within my closest family and friend circles it feels like a subject I have very little qualification to speak on, therefore it is not a project I would take on alone,’ Fleassy says.
The poetry collaboration will be co-written and then edited and curated into a filmed single spoken word piece with film footage of the people from the workshop.

The poetry collaboration will include a half-day workshop for discussions and creative writing of lived experience; an editing process weaving the writing from the workshop into a concise spoken word poem; sharing of poem for feedback from workshop participants; a half-day filming session to record the poem (3mins) being spoken by workshop participants. If anyone is not comfortable with being filmed, creative options such as filming feet, hands, hair and stock video can be used to ensure anonymity.

This project is an initiative of ViiV Heathcare and an honorarium payment will be provided to women who take part in the poetry collaboration.
To view performance poet Fleassy’s work: View Fleassy’s spoken poetry
To read more about Fleassy Malay
To join the project and for more details please email: Ann Maccarrone at ViiV Healthcare:   ann.l.maccarrone@viivhealthcare.com