DIVA TV was a gay and lesbian video activist collective founded in New York City in 1989. The name was an acronym for "Damned Interfering Video Activist Television". Founding members include: Bob Beck,

Gregg Bordowitz Gregg Bordowitz (born August 14, 1964) is a writer, artist, and activist currently working as a professor in the Video, New Media, and Animation department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Biography Gregg Bordowitz was born August 1 ...

Jean Carlomusto Jean Carlomusto (born 1959, Queens, New York) is a New York filmmaker, AIDS activist, and interactive media artist. She produced and directed HBO's Emmy nominated documentary, ''Larry Kramer in Love & Anger'', which was featured at the Sundance ...

, Rob Kurilla,

Ray Navarro Raymond Robert Navarro (November 6, 1964November 9, 1990) was an American video artist, filmmaker, and HIV/AIDS activist. Navarro was an active member of ACT UP and a founder of Diva TV (video collective), Diva TV. His activism was featured in the ...

, Costa Pappas, George Plagianos, Catherine Saalfield, and

Ellen Spiro Ellen Spiro is an American documentary filmmaker. She was a producer and director of a television documentary ''Are the kids alright?'', which won an Emmy Award in 2005. She is a professor emerita of the University of Texas at Austin, where sh ...

.Juhasz, Alex. "DIVA TV and ACT UP (United States)." Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, edited by John D. H. Downing, SAGE Reference, 2011, pp. 165-166. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Accessed 30 Nov. 2017.

History

DIVA TV was an affinity group with

ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

(AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and it preserved many of ACT UP's demonstrations,

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

actions and public reaction to the group from the streets of New York as the AIDS crisis unfolded there. Members of DIVA TV identified themselves as partisan activists who created media in the same way participants in the Indymedia movement would fifteen years later—or in the same way

Third World Newsreel Third World Newsreel (formerly known as Newsreel) is an American media center and film distribution company based in New York City. History Newsreel, the forerunner of ''Third World Newsreel'', was established in 1967 as a collective. "In 1973, ...

did in the 1960s using earlier 8-mm film technology.

Productions

In 1989, DIVA created three notable video productions: ''Target City Hall,'' about a 28 March 1989 ACT UP demonstration against New York City Mayor Ed Koch's inadequate response to the AIDS crisis, ''Pride'' on the 20th anniversary of the city's gay and lesbian pride movement, and ''Like A Prayer,'' five 7-minute perspectives on the ACT UP/ WHAM (Women's Health Action Mobilization) 10 December 1989 demonstration at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York to protest Cardinal John O'Connor's response to AIDS. Selected clips from DIVA TV's ACT-UP films can be viewed on their website. A videotape archive of their work can be viewed at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY, and another is available at the New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division.

References

External links

DIVA TV
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

Lesbian collectives Lesbian-related mass media in the United States Mass media companies of the United States Companies based in New York City Lesbian culture in New York (state) Defunct LGBT organizations based in New York City LGBT-related mass media in the United States Film collectives {{LGBT-media-stub

History

Productions

See also

References

External links