So... when did you figure out that you had AIDS?

So... when did you figure out that you had AIDS? consists of home video footage recorded when Chevalier was 13 years old in which he plays the role of a yellow clown-wig bedecked “man dying from AIDS" on a pretend daytime talk show. He is interviewed by his earnest childhood friend, and makes a series of cringe-worthy admissions that represent simultaneously an identification with, and alienation from, the meta-fictional AIDS victim. The video predates both the artist’s HIV diagnosis and entrance into art academia by six years. This internationally exhibited short serves as a “foundational work within my art and identity histories,” Chevalier writes, “as it predicts themes of performativity and representation that I would later come to explore.” Screened as part of the 2014 Queensland Art Gallery group show Your Nostalgia Is Killing Me! (itself a phrase pulled from a poster designed by Chevalier for AIDS ACTION NOW!’s poster/virus campaign in 2013), So… when did you figure out you had AIDS? was also chosen as part of the program for Still Not Over It: 70 Years of Queer Canadian Film, MediaQueer.ca’s launch event at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August, 2015.