Harlen Munsö, an American artist based in Orlando, Florida, is a multimedia artist mainly working with paintings and drawings paired with video.  From the beginning, Harlen Munsö understood his art as reflections on Queer culture, lifestyles, and the people living in it.  He understands himself as an analyst and recorder of contemporary LGBTQ life.  Again and again, he creates works related to the human experience of the horrors of early HIV treatments and the inquisitive works regarding current HIV prevention. 

Besides his own body of work, his approach as an artist is interdisciplinary and often involves other artists and companies.  An example is his creative cooperation with Formlessness Inc. and the Swiss band Massimo & Pierce where he directed experimental videos for them to be used for live projections.  These videos were eventually shown in the US film festivals of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco and toured internationally in Berlin, London, Mexico City, Naples, Pavia, Rio De Janeiro, Tel Aviv, and Torino.

Harlen’s work questions identity as oftentimes, he plays with images freely, but imaginatively, all the while questioning definitions of gender, race, and nationality as well as tradition and progress too.  As the current artist in residence at the Village Berlin, he is creating an installation that’s a mixture of playful drawings and a video of the community around him.  This is designed to create a portrait of a time and place in understanding about our choices in protecting ourselves and each other from HIV.