Body Freedom for Every(Body) launched its tour in Times Square, New York City, on September 4th, featuring a special lineup of programming in collaboration with Times Square Arts and The Armory Show. The event began with the Resistance Revival Chorus, which performed songs advocating for justice, followed by remarks from PES Co-directors Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol, as well as Jean Cooney, Director of Times Square Arts. Over the course of two days, additional programming included a dance party curated by Terrell Villiers and hosted by Joshua Obawole Allen, featuring DJ sets by Princess Peggie, Doll Nxt Door, and Pauli Cakes. Body Freedoms artist Christen Clifford led a sign-making workshop where participants painted recycled cardboard, creating signs that celebrated the joys of body freedom.

On September 6, the initiative continued at NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture, partnering with various organizations, including the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, the NYU Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture, The Latinx Project, and For Freedoms. The NYC leg of the tour concluded at AIDS Memorial Park on September 8, where the truck was stationed at St. Vincents Triangle in partnership with the New York AIDS Memorial and Visual Aids.

NYC Location Partners: 

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, is the largest public platform for innovative contemporary performance and visual arts. With up to 480,000 daily visitors to New York City's Times Square, it is one of the highest profile public arts programs and since its inception, Times Square Arts has featured works by a diverse group of nearly two hundred prominent and emerging artists. Learn more here.

A cornerstone of New York’s cultural landscape since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show brings the world’s leading international contemporary and modern art galleries to New York each year. The fair plays a leading role in the city’s position as an important cultural capital through elevated presentations, thoughtful programming, curatorial leadership, meaningful institutional partnerships, and engaging public art activations. Learn more here.

The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) was founded in 1999.  They were the first and are still one of the few centers in the U.S. with a named emphasis on both gender and sexuality.  CSGS facilitates a broad interdisciplinary investigation of gender and sexuality as keys to understanding human experience. Learn more here.

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) & Center for Black Visual Culture (CBVC) at New York University are both interdisciplinary spaces for students, faculty, post-doc fellows, artists, scholars and the general public. Founded in 1969, IAAA’s mission continues to research, document, and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond with a commitment to the study of Blacks in modernity through concentrations in Pan-Africanism and Black Urban Studies. Learn more here.

The Latinx Project at New York University explores and promotes U.S. Latinx Art, Culture and Scholarship through creative and interdisciplinary programs. Founded in 2018, it was consolidated as a provostial center in 2023 as The Latinx Project: Interdisciplinary Center for Arts and Culture. The center’s distinguishing programs include the Artist-in-Residence, Curatorial Open Call, Miriam Jiménez Román Fellowship, Public Humanities Fellowship, and Intervenxions digital platform and publication. Learn more here.

The New York City AIDS Memorial honors the more than 100,000 New Yorkers who have died of AIDS and acknowledges the contributions of caregivers and activists who mobilized to provide care for the ill, fight discrimination, lobby for medical research, and alter the drug approval process. The Memorial aims to inspire visitors to remember and reflect as well as empower current and future activists, health professionals, and people living with HIV in the continuing mission to eradicate the disease through the maintenance of our permanent, architecturally significant Memorial as well as through educational and cultural programming. Learn more here.

Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over. Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums, and publications—while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. Learn more here.