Platforming a legacy of queer community care that began in Soweto, Johannesburg over thirty years ago, Acts of Care transforms decades-old archival material into a living, participatory experience.

The exhibition is free and open to the public at Latitudes Centre for the Arts until Sunday, 1 December, featuring interactive and visual works. Here’s what you need to know:

Acts of Care Immersive Exhibition

As an Extended Reality (XR) exhibition, Acts of Care draws on archival material from the Township AIDS Project (TAP), held by the GALA Queer Archive.

With the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, and an interactive creative public space, the audience are invited to witness how communities in early 1990s Johannesburg and Soweto organised care, education and advocacy in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, at a time when the disease was poorly understood, deeply stigmatised, and often framed as a moral or political threat.

The exhibition is structured in three interconnected experiential zones, each representing the past, present and future, which also maps to the visitor’s journey and experience of Caring (Witness), Loving (Recognise) and Sharing (Act):

Station one

The first zone places visitors inside a VR reconstruction of an early 1990s community counselling room in Johannesburg, narrated by Enea Motaung, who ran the Township AIDS Project (TAP) for many years, and it draws on lived testimonies.

Station two

The second zone highlights activism, awareness, and self-expression, featuring a playful, full-body AR photo experience, drawing on the bold safe-sex campaign typography and graphic aesthetics of 1990s queer activist culture. Visitors are encouraged to pose, move, and experiment with identity in a joyful and unapologetic space.

Station three

In the third zone, visitors are invited to design their own posters, physically or digitally, using visual assets from the TAP and GALA archive, with their completed works pasted and projected onto a growing shared wall, which becomes a living, evolving archive of contemporary care and advocacy that builds throughout the exhibition’s run.

Need to know before you go

Cost: Free entry

When: Running from 5 September to 1 December 2026. Tuesdays to Fridays, 10am to 3pm | Selected Saturdays, 26 September, 31 October and 28 November 2026 from 10am to 1pm.
Where: Latitudes Centre for the Arts, 12 Hope Road, Mountain View, Johannesburg

Website: latitudes.online
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @actsofcare_sa

Must-see Joburg art exhibitions