Exhibition
Exhibition
Fashion as a means for Sexual Health
The Project
The Exhibition
"HABITUS, the exhibition stems from the idea that clothing can become a powerful tool for social communication and prevention."
Promoted by ANLAIDS to mark its 40th anniversary, HABITUS is a touring exhibition that evolved as a natural continuation of the national competition, turning fashion sketches and garments into genuine manifestos for raising awareness about HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
The exhibition features 36 finalist sketches and 3 garments created by designers from across the country, including the islands. Each piece tells a story, conveys a message, and seeks to break a taboo.
The objective is twofold: on the one hand, to champion youth talent in the fields of design and fashion; on the other, to forge a new language—visual, wearable, and everyday—to spread the culture of sexual health prevention and combat HIV-related stigma.
DUE INSTALLAZIONI D’ARTE
U.N.A.I.D.S. & GRAAL
Also on display are two art installations: U.N.A.I.D.S. by Samuel Perea-Díaz, and GRAAL by A.I., Artifex Incognitus, an anonymous artist.
To mark ANLAIDS’s 40th anniversary, and through the strong desire of the exhibition’s curator, the sound art installation U.N.A.I.D.S. from the Hearing Silence (Ascoltando il silenzio) series by Spanish-Berlin artist Samuel Perea-Díaz, makes its exclusive Italian debut, enthusiastically joining the prevention message that ANLAIDS has been championing for four decades.
This conceptual artwork, featuring a spherical loudspeakerand an electrical cable custom-engraved with graffiti, generates 20 kHz sine wave pulses designed to mirror the pulse rate of annual global AIDS-related deaths. The piece thus gives sonic form, and a voice, to the latest UNAIDS statistics, the world’s most comprehensive repository of data on the HIV epidemic. The work is part of Perea-Díaz’s theoretical research mapping the impact of the early AIDS epidemic through sound-focused artworks.
The frequency of 20 kHz (20,000 Hertz) represents the highest threshold of sound audible to the human ear; frequencies above this point are classified as ultrasound and remain unheard by humans. This nuance heightens the installation’s emotional resonance for the viewer. Furthermore, it serves as a powerful, sentient metaphor for the consequences of stigma: the silence of stigma is devastating, a silence that omits, conceals, and silences the voices of those who today live well with the virus through effective antiretroviral therapy; a stigma that overshadows scientific progress in misinformation, fear, and ignorance rather than bringing it to light.
GRAAL presents a single antiretroviral pill housed inside a display case, reminiscent of an exquisitely post-Tridentine reliquary. It showcases the pharmacological device that has improved and saved the lives of millions whose immune systems have encountered HIV. This small pharmacological marvel has achieved a once-unthinkable outcome: thanks to consistent daily antiretroviral therapy, people living with HIV who achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load cannot pass HIV on to others, even during condomless sex. This is the core of U=U: "Undetectable = Untransmittable". With a suppressed viral load, the virus cannot be transmitted. It means having the same life expectancy as anyone else. It means being able to have children with the certainty of not passing the virus on to them.
What You Will Find in the Exhibition
Winning Projects
The exhibition features 36 finalist sketches and 3 garments created by designers from all over Italy.
The 36 awarded projects: finalists and winners
The Curator
A vision bridging art, fashion and civic engagement
«The HABITUS project was conceived, developed and curated with the objetive to build a bridge between the creative world of designers and the social mission of ANLAIDS. In curating and designing the exhibition space, special attention was devoted to the artistic quality of the works, the coherence of the message and the clarity of a visual language that goes beyond mere aesthetic pleasure.
Every location of the HABITUS journey is designed as an opportunity for connection and exchange: with local communities, the general public, design schools and cultural and healthcare professionals—fostering dialogue and awareness through art in line with the most up-to-date vision of Cultural Welfare. By visiting the exhibition — conceived as a genuine sexual health campaign ready to wear — my hope is that people will grasp how urgent it is for habit to become something shared. Only in this way it turns into custom, and customs, as we well know, are the attitudes that give shape to the values of our communities.»
– Sebastiano Bazzichetto, Ph.D.
HOW THE CALL CAME TO LIFE…
A project for those who believe Art can change our point of view
It all began with a national call launched in April 2025, open to:
- Students from Italian Academies of Fine Arts and Fashion Schools
- Creatives from all over Italy
The contest invited participants to explore the communicative power of fashion in promoting sexual health prevention, drawing inspiration from significant cultural, anthropological and historical references.
The project takes its cue from reflections on illness as a metaphor, a concept explored by Susan Sontag in her famous 1989 book AIDS and Its Metaphors, and from Moschino’s iconic campaign with Fiore Crespi. In that campaign, the dress turned into a costume, becoming a means to raise awareness through symbolic elements such as condoms, red ribbons, lollipops and smiles pinned onto the bodice of a highly elegant evening gown, paired with aristocratic long gloves.
The Jury
Together with Luca Butini, National President of Anlaids ETS, the jury benefited from the generous and pro-bono participation of prominent figures, including:
Sara Sozzani Maino, Creative Director at Fondazione Sozzani
Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global Photo Vogue
Laura Nobile, General Coordinator at Tirelli Costumi
Elena Di Cioccio, Actress, Writer, and Journalist
Lorenzo Cutuli, Stage Designer and Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice
Emanuele Scorcelletti, Photographer
1985 – 2025
40 Years of ANLAIDS
ANLAIDS celebrates forty years of battles, commitment and hope. HABITUS is one of the projects created to mark this milestone anniversary: a way to look ahead, to speak to new generations and to turn memory into action.
