Tea Time: Mapping Informal Networks of Women Living with HIV Book Launch - Toronto

[Tim McCaskell]

**Please share this with your networks -- especially women living with HIV

Please join us to celebrate the brave and amazing women living with HIV who participated in this body of work at the Tea Time: Mapping Informal Networks of Women Living with HIV Book Launch in TORONTO. It is a way to thank our friends and community members for being there for use to help make use strong enough to find the cracks in the stigma and find each other -- plus you'll get to meet my grandma who is very cute!

While the event is schedules from 1-4pm, there will be an artist talk and presentation at 2pm.

Tea and Baked Goods will be provided. The venue is fully accessible.

Important note: We want to arrange transportation to bring in some of the Tea Time participants from outside Toronto -- if you are interested in making this happen or can help in anyway this would be greatly appreciate! They live in Orillia/Barrie, Hamilton, Richmond Hill, Ottawa (okay that is far but I would like them there!), and a few other places. Train tickets, carpools, accommodations for the night -- these are all very helpful gifts!

About the book:

T ea Time: Mapping Informal Networks of Women Living with HIV began as Jessica Whitbread’s master’s thesis. She was interested in finding a way to build the fragmented and disconnected network of women living with HIV in Canada through a community-based research project that brought women living with HIV together using the Tea Time method. The project was designed to highlight the health needs of women living with HIV in a North American context, as well as to explore the application of the Tea Time method as a community-building tool. After the original research phase was complete, Tea Time has shifted to be a community arts project and has expanded globally.

Through this work Jessica has hosted tea parties with over 64 women living with HIV. Each woman’s (including Jessica) participation was documented through a personal letter and teacup that has been photographed. The Tea Time book is a collection of the photos as well as an introduction to the Tea Time method and Jessica’s personal and academic insight into the project.

“Tea Time became a personal journey to discover my own understanding of HIV in relation to gender. Each woman’s story is rooted in her own individual experience. This is mine. Similar to the many conversations that were had during Tea Time, these pages offer glimpses of the complicated thought process of living with HIV. You will read about some of these thoughts in the letters that were shared by the women who attended.”

The book is a 194-page, hard cover coffee table book that has a very limited printing of 100 copies. There will be a smaller number of copies that have very limited edition cover sleeves by Jessica MacCormack, Johnny Nawrajac and Anthea Black printed by: Nicholas Shick, Anthea Black, and Eric Steenbergen.. Each book has gold foil stamping and will be numbered. With only 15 copies being available for at each launch, and there is also a free digital version available to everyone. All the funds will go towards continuing the project and continuing to build the community.

Please contact Jessica Whitbread to RSVP and/or inquire about reserving copies of the book. (please also indicate that you will be attending this event)

Special love goes out to Jonathan Lefrancois for being the rock that designed the book; Anthea, Johnny, and Jessica for being so supportive and gracious for designing beautiful cover sleeves; Julie, Sean, Jill, Morgan, Cate, Will, Robert, Darien and Lesley my volunteer editors; and last but not least the brave and beautiful women living with HIV that participated in the project.

Thanks to SRC and CIHR for the funding to make sharing this work possible.