Red Ribbon Project — Gonçalo Fernandes

The Red Ribbon Project is a multidisciplinary arts initiative exploring the history, lived experience and continuing stigma surrounding HIV through music, visual art, public conversation and community engagement.

Supported by Tŷ Cerdd and Arts Council Wales, the project brings together artists, healthcare professionals, people with lived experience and community voices to examine how HIV has been represented, understood and discussed across different generations.

Developed in response to the continuing need for HIV awareness and stigma reduction, the project combines artistic practice with education and public engagement. Its work considers the legacy of the HIV/AIDS crisis alongside major advances in treatment, prevention and public health, creating space for both historical reflection and contemporary perspectives.

At the centre of the project is the belief that art can create forms of conversation that statistics and medical information alone cannot. Music, portraiture, testimony and discussion are brought together to make complex histories personal, accessible and emotionally immediate.

Artistic Programme

The project was presented in 2025 through a multidisciplinary programme combining live music, commissioned composition, large-scale visual portraiture and public discussion.

At the National Museum Cardiff, the project brought audiences together for a live programme combining music with a panel discussion involving voices from healthcare, HIV advocacy and lived experience.

The artistic programme was developed not simply to illustrate the subject of HIV, but to create connections between individual experience, collective memory and contemporary public understanding.

Further presentation at the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) extended the project into a civic context, bringing its themes of representation, stigma and public health into another form of public space.

Music

Music forms one of the central artistic languages of the Red Ribbon Project.

Original and curated musical material was used to create an emotional framework through which audiences could engage with the project's themes beyond factual or historical information alone.

Through performance and commissioned work, music became a way of responding to memory, loss, resilience, intimacy and social change.

Rather than functioning as accompaniment to the project's educational content, the musical programme was conceived as an equal part of the wider artistic dialogue.

Visual Art & Representation

Large-scale portraiture, created by Darren Varnam, brought individual human presence into the project, challenging the tendency for conversations about HIV to be reduced to statistics, medical terminology or historical imagery.

The visual work foregrounded people, identity and lived experience, creating another point of encounter between the audience and the subject matter.

Together with the musical programme, these portraits helped build a multidisciplinary environment in which personal and collective histories could coexist.

Conversation & Lived Experience

Dialogue is fundamental to the Red Ribbon Project.

Featuring a live panel discussion in partnership with Fast Track Cymru and the NHS, the project has brought together healthcare professionals, advocates and people with lived experience of HIV, creating opportunities for medical knowledge, personal testimony and artistic interpretation to meet within the same space.

This exchange allows audiences to encounter HIV not only as a public-health subject, but through the experiences of people whose lives and professional practices are directly connected to it.

Education & Outreach

Alongside its public presentations, the Red Ribbon Project developed an outreach programme aimed at younger audiences and communities.

Workshops encouraged participants to consider how music and art can be used to explore HIV, stigma and representation, creating opportunities for discussion through creative practice rather than traditional health education alone.

This educational dimension extends the project beyond the performance space and reflects its wider commitment to accessibility, dialogue and social engagement.

Artistic Direction

Founded in 2024 by Gonçalo Fernandes, the Red Ribbon Project reflects an interdisciplinary approach to artistic practice in which music is used as a starting point for wider collaboration.

Bringing together artists, healthcare professionals, community organisations and people with lived experience, the project was developed across artistic production, curation, performance and public engagement.

Its collaborative structure has become an important part of Gonçalo's wider practice: creating projects in which different disciplines and forms of knowledge contribute to a shared artistic and social conversation.

National Cardiff Museum - Performance

Creative & Project Contributors

Gonçalo Fernandes

Project Director & Creative Producer
Ruan Martins

Audiovisual Director, Co-Producer, Editor
Niamh J O'Donnell

Lead Composer & Music Producer
Darren Varnam

Lead Visual Artist
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

Tim Rhys-Evans (Director of Music) | Studio Recordings & Student Engagement
PWSH Cardiff

Rachel Kinchin | Exhibition Venue Facilitator
Alan Thomas-Williams

Lead Curriculum Achievement Officer - Expressive Arts | Outreach Lead
Sarah Maslen-Roberts

Fast Track Cymru Manager | Panelist & Outreach
Darren Cousins

Sexual Health Consultant | Panelist
Adam Williams

Multi-award winning Queer Researcher | Moderator
Africa Olle

On Your Face Founder & Director | Management Support & Mentorship
Alex Jenkins

Piano | Musician
Diogo Fernandes

Saxophone | Musician
Rute Luz

Digital Marketing
Patricia Santos

Logo Designer