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As the panels celebrating the 30th anniversary of Montréal’s Village are about to go up, 2B celebrates the lasting contribution of ACT-UP!
Herewith: Michael Hendricks on the Parc de l’Espoir…

Réjean Thomas is a leading researcher in the field of HIV/AIDS, and the head doctor at the Actuel Clinic in Montréal. We sat down with the founder of the Fondation l’Actuel to reflect on the 30th anniversary of AIDS and the confusion that still reigns today.

As any gay person who reads or watches GLBT media knows by now, this year has marked the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV and AIDS. As we begin to close out 2011, there is one final event to mark the significance of this anniversary. December 1st is World AIDS Day. Since 1988, World AIDS Day has been an opportunity for people to unite globally in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died.

Unlike the generation that lived through the early part of the AIDS crisis, and distinct from the younger generation who have no recollection of it whatsoever, these 30 year-old writers have lived parallel to the epidemic and have the particular experience of being born in 1981 (or 1980) as well. Herewith, they recall lives lived in parallel to the AIDS pandemic, as part of our lead-up to World AIDS Day this Dec. 1st.

For the past three years, now moving into year four, Ottawa gallerist Patrick John Mills has done an exhibit entitled the Art of Giving. For the month of December the gallery will show over 20 artists, including Être coverboy Mathieu Laca, with Mills taking zero commission on sales, and a trove of art going to AIDS service org Bruce House at the end.

In the summer of 1981, doctors sounded the alarm as certain homosexual men were dying of an unknown disease that would soon become a global epidemic. Jean-Pierre Routy was a young medical intern in the south of France at the time, and saw some of the very first AIDS patients that few other doctors wanted to treat. Ever since then, he has been active in the struggle to fight the disease. He is sometimes disappointed, but always optimistic. 2B caught up with him to discuss his new book, a sort of encyclopaedia of the disease, which is as practical as it is moving.

UK International Development Minister says policy has been misrepresented: UK foreign aid will not be cut, but switched to NGOs and civil society organisations; On Monday, Nov 21, the Tatchell Foundation presented African social justice activists’ statement to UK government.

On the occasion of the flagship gay erotic emporium’s 37th anniversary, Priape co-founder reflects on the store’s success, the origins of the Village, the AIDS era, his gay heroes, and his favourite sexessory.

A moving documentary tribute to one of the reluctant heroes of the AIDS movement, Vito screened last night to an appreciative audience at Image + Nation. A labour of love by Jeffrey Schwarz, assistant editor to the acclaimed film version of Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, 1995), Schwarz’s ode shows the inspirational ACT-UP co-founder in all his complexity. Review by Conrad Ryan.

Montréal’s Farha Foundation has been doing the city’s massive AIDSWalk, known as Ça Marche for 19 years already. Thirty years after the advent of AIDS, the issues have become less about life and death, and more about stigma, quality of life, and community. This Sunday, the Ça Marche charity walk-a-thon will lead a march of thousands of people who have received pledges of support from all over Québec, in one of the highlights of the city’s community calendar.