This story is sponsored by Afro Care Support Network.
In Black communities, silence has often been a survival tool. But when it comes to HIV, that silence has also been deadly. Tina Knowles understands this deeply—and she’s using art to help break it.
As Founder and Artistic Director of WACO (Where Art Can Occur) Theater Center, Knowles is guiding Still Here, a powerful editorial magazine and storytelling project that centers Black women impacted by HIV. The project is rooted in truth, compassion, and lived experience—and it’s personal.
“HIV has touched my family, and I know how devastating silence can be,” Knowles shares. “Still Here is about honoring Black women whose stories deserve care, visibility, and respect.”
Produced with support from Gilead Sciences, Still Here is the second chapter of an ongoing initiative by WACO Theater Center to amplify voices that are too often ignored. The first chapter came alive last fall with the Still Here Live Experience, an immersive art event that transformed a working hair salon into a sacred space for dialogue, healing, and performance—because for Black women, beauty spaces have always doubled as places of truth-telling.
That experience featured installations staged inside hair dryers and shampoo bowls, alongside performances by artists Marinda Anderson, Neverending Nina, Milan Reneau, Jude Tibeau, and Akilah A. Walker. It was intimate, bold, and unapologetically Black.
Still Here Magazine highlighted writers.
Now, Still Here lives on as a magazine edited by journalist and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux, arriving at a moment when many assume HIV is no longer a crisis. The numbers say otherwise. Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted—diagnosed at rates far higher than their white counterparts—yet their stories rarely take center stage.
“Too many people believe the crisis is over,” Lemieux says. “Still Here exists to challenge that assumption.”
The magazine features essays, poetry, photography, interviews, visual art, and interactive elements that explore HIV through lenses of health, motherhood, pleasure, memory, activism, and the future. It doesn’t flatten Black women’s lives into statistics—it honors their fullness.
At its core, Still Here reflects Tina Knowles’ long-standing commitment to storytelling as a tool for healing and change. Through WACO Theater Center, she continues to create spaces where art meets community, and where difficult conversations are held with care.
The launch of Still Here will be celebrated on February 12 at The Gathering Spot in Los Angeles’ historic West Adams neighborhood—bringing together artists, cultural workers, and community members to honor stories that refuse to be erased.
Because Black women are still here and their voices are still powerful.