Abstract
El manifiesto PrEP centers the queer body as a battleground for access, autonomy, and visibility in the context of HIV prevention. Through performance, the work reclaims speech as an embodied act, turning the body into a site where resistance against stigma and corporate control is both voiced and enacted. Rather than treating PrEP as a neutral medical tool, the manifesto frames it as deeply political, exposing how bodies are unevenly protected, pathologized, or excluded based on race, class, gender, and sexuality.
By activating the body in live performance, El manifiesto PrEP challenges the silence and shame that have historically surrounded HIV/AIDS. It transforms clinical discourse into collective protest, insisting that health is not just biomedical but bodily, social, and lived. In doing so, it reimagines the body not as passive recipient of treatment, but as agent of liberation.
The PrEP Manifesto is part of the SPIT! Manifesto, a series of performative interventions presented at Frieze Projects, London, in 2017. These performances incorporated oral actions and performative gestures inspired by queer manifestos produced from the 1960s to the present. The SPIT! collective wrote a series of manifestos addressing crucial issues such as gender and sexual oppression, and invited various performers to interpret, (in some cases) rewrite, and perform them.
The PrEP Manifesto specifically addresses the significance of treatment, corporate greed, stigma, and liberation surrounding PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), an antiviral taken by individuals who have not been exposed to HIV in order to prevent infection.
Citation
SPIT!, Sodomitas, Pervertides, Invertides, Juntes! (Carlos Motta, John Arthur Peetz, Carlos Maria Romero). 2017. 'El manifiesto PrEP [The PrEP Manifesto]'. Dispossessions in the Americas. https://staging.dia.upenn.edu/en/art/ACOL002/

