From the Archive: "WE CARE: A Video for Care Providers of People Affected by AIDS" (1990)

Alexandra Juhasz began the Women’s AIDS Video Enterprise (WAVE) in 1989. In collaboration with Aida Matta, Carmen Perez, Glenda Smith-Hasty, Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, Marcia Edwards, and Sharon Penceal, the group produced a series of videos by and for urban women of color at increased risk of contracting HIV. 

WAVE began as a support group and educational project, bringing together a group of women who would discuss the impact of the AIDS crisis on their lives and critically examine the media coverage surrounding it. Alongside these discussions, Juhasz offered instruction in video production, seeking to “shift the hand of the video camera from the distanced and punitive control of the mainstream media to the women who come from the communities most affected by this crisis.”

Meeting weekly over a period of six months, they produced three videos: A WAVE Taster, H.I.V. T.V., and WE CARE: A Video for Care Providers of People Affected by AIDS. The video opens with a poem of the same name by WAVE’s in-house poet, Misery Dane (Juanita’s nom de plume). These videos were screened in shelters, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and classrooms across New York City, and broadcast on public-access TV.

Juhasz would later document the WAVE project in her 1995 book, AIDS TV: Identity, Community, and Alternative Video, detailing the various challenges they encountered, from securing funding to production and distribution. WAVE was sponsored by the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force (BATF) and received support from the New York Council for the Humanities, the Astraea Fund for Women, Women Make Movies, and Art Matters.

In 2025, Juhasz released Please Hold, an experimental documentary film that continues to reflect on questions on legacy and loss, including through her work with Juanita on the WAVE project.

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References:‍

Alexandra Juhasz,  AIDS TV: Identity, Community, and Alternative Video. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. 

Alexandra Juhasz, Jean Carlomusto, & Henry Szczepanski, Remembering Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski (1967–2022). Visual AIDS, March 6, 2023.

Alexandra Juhasz, VHS Activism Archive. ‍‍

James Wentzy and Melanie A. Yolles, “AIDS Activist Videotape Collection, 1983-2000,” New York Public Library, 2002.

Please Hold, dir. Alexandra Juhasz. https://pleaseholdvideo.com/about-please-hold/

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