Red flags, a love letter

Through a cacophony of limbs, members, and sounds drawn from the party and play scene, Mikiki speaks with other drug users about the possibilities of representing the pleasure of substance use beyond the framework of harm.

Commissioned in 2022 as part of BEING AND BELONGING, a program of seven new videos highlighting strategies of community care within the ongoing HIV epidemic.

Mikiki describes Red Flags as an attempt to create a more neutral depiction of sexualized injection drug use among gay men, also known as slamming within the chemsex or “party and play” scene. Normally framed through the narrow lens of abuse and immorality, injection drug use is rarely seen from the perspective of users themselves, and even less often do these narratives center on pleasure and belonging.

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