Day With(out) Art 2026: seeds in a dying colony

NYU’s Grey Art Museum is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2026 by presenting seeds in a dying colony, a program of four videos that move through the afterlives of colonialism and the ongoing HIV epidemic. Across fractured histories and landscapes marked by extraction, the works trace how systems of power shape the body, memory, and experiences of care.

Event Information

The program will feature four newly commissioned short videos by artists from across the world: Edgar Hudson (Tanzania), Bruna Kury and Matheus Mello (Brazil/Spain), Sido Lansari (Morocco/France), and Micaela Cyrino (Brazil).

seeds in a dying colony will be screened at the Grey Art Museum from 11am to 5pm on the hour. A drop-in seed-packet decoration workshop will connect themes from the videos with New-York-native plants and Lenape culture and queer gifting practices from 11am to 5pm.

Visitor Access

Registration is not required—visitors can enter and exit at any point during the program.

Videos contain explicit sexual content, nudity, and drug use. Visitors under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Video Synopses

Edgar Hudson, There is an Elephant in the Room
mentor: Amil Shivji

A young person flees home after a life-altering discovery, carrying the weight of things that cannot be said out loud. He encounters an activist fighting to be heard and a care worker sustaining others through daily acts of survival. Through dance and movement, the film offers a quiet story of survival, exile, and return, asking what it takes to face the elephant that everyone knows is there. 

Bruna Kury and Matheus Mello, VENGANZA TRAVESTY (TRAVESTY REVENGE)
mentor: Hiura Fernandes

A visual manifesto that transforms the HIV virus into a mirror of empire, where data, propaganda, and flesh collide. Through a frenetic digital collage, the film exposes the biopolitical machinery that controls the body and weaponizes borders against life itself.

Sido Lansari, ON A BRIGHT DAY (C'ÉTAIT UN JOUR LUMINEUX)
mentor: Ésery Mondesir

ON A BRIGHT DAY (C'ÉTAIT UN JOUR LUMINEUX) weaves together archival echoes, poetic fragments, and testimonies of Arab queer lives touched by HIV, spanning generations and geographies. Through the voices of the dead and the living, the film transforms silenced histories into a collective act of remembrance and resistance.

Micaela Cyrino, How to project your voice without causing an earthquake
mentor: J Triangular

Carolina lives alone in an apartment on the outskirts of São Paulo. Every morning she faces the city’s frenetic pace during the long commute from her home to work. In her thoughts, her grandmother’s wisdom always returns; in her headphones, it’s always the same rap. In her bag, she carries the book of recipes, baths, and blessings she inherited from her grandmother and the desire to end the day well.