Instituent R.C. 2903.11 [2018]

Instituent R.C. 2903.11 is a time-based media work that interrogates the institutional architectures shaping the lived experiences of people affected by HIV/AIDS. Drawing on archival footage from the first decade of the AIDS crisis, the video examines the entangled relationships between public policy, healthcare, education, capital, and intimacy. By foregrounding this visual history alongside contemporary conversations with Chief Public Policy and Strategy Advisors from Equitas Health—Ohio’s largest HIV healthcare provider—and Equality Ohio, the work situates present-day advocacy within a lineage of resistance.

The title references Ohio’s HIV-specific criminalization statute, invoking both its legal framework and the broader implications of institutionalized stigma. Through critical juxtaposition and narrative layering, Instituent R.C. 2903.11 preserves the strategies of early AIDS activists while challenging the continued surveillance and criminalization of bodies in the name of public health. The work calls for the repeal and reformation of outdated legislation, reframing HIV not through the lens of punishment, but through justice, care, and equity.