Still Here – Immersive salon experience & installation WACO Theater Center

An interactive exhibit and immersive performance brought to life inside a hair salon environment.

Still Here: The Magazine

Still Here is a single-issue magazine produced by WACO Theater Center, created to center the voices, experiences, and resilience of Black women impacted by HIV/AIDS. Designed as a lasting cultural artifact, the publication connects to the life of Still Here Live Experience, offering space for reflection, learning, and connection in everyday settings.

Produced with generous support from Gilead Sciences, Inc., the magazine brings together essays, poetry, photography, visual art, and cultural commentary from a powerful group of writers and artists. Across its pages, personal narratives sit alongside education and creative expression, illuminating stories that are too often overlooked and holding them with care.

“This magazine seeks to provide both the essential information Black women need as well as a nuanced look at the lives of sisters living (and thriving) post-diagnosis.”

Jamilah LemieuxEditor-in-Chief

How it connects to Still Here Live Experience

While Still Here Live invites audiences into a shared, embodied experience through performance, the magazine offers another way to engage with the work.

The live experience brings the collective together in a shared space. The magazine carries the stories into homes, salons, waiting rooms, and community spaces, allowing them to be revisited long after the performance ends.

Community-centered by design

Still Here is distributed through trusted community spaces, including salons, bookstores, cultural centers, and organizations rooted in Black women’s health and care. These locations serve as places of encounter, where the magazine can be picked up and shared.

The publication is meant to live in hands and in conversation. Its impact continues through circulation, dialogue, and the relationships formed around it.

“Through these pages, I hope we illuminate truths that are too often left in the shadows.”

Tina KnowlesArtistic Director, WACO Theater Center

“HIV is not just a medical issue—it’s a human one. Let’s treat it that way.”

Shay WaferExecutive Director, WACO Theater Center

Editorial Team

The inaugural issue of STILL HERE MAGAZINE.

The issue centers the experiences of Black women living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS. It features the stories of Black mothers, sisters, pastors, artists, neighbors, and others who illuminate the current state of HIV within the Black community. The inaugural issue is funded in part by a grant from Gilead Sciences and will be distributed in community locations across Los Angles, Houston and Baton Rouge