Emory University hosts “Art and Censorship: A Screening of David Wojnarowicz’s ‘A Fire in My Belly’ and Panel Discussion from 7-9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17.

“A Fire in My Belly” was part of the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition titled “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” and was recently banned from the exhibit after Catholic leaders complained to the Smithsonian of the image of ants crawling over a crucifix.

Also part of the Thursday event at Emory will be film footage of ACT UP in Atlanta from 1990, provided by Jeff Graham, a longtime HIV and LGBT activist who is now the executive director of Georgia Equality.

A screening of “A Fire in My Belly” will take place as well as another film by Wojnarowicz, “ITSOFOMO.”

“The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on art censorship, public policy and artistic freedom, and the latest chapter in the so-called culture wars concerning religion and sexuality,” states an Emory press release.

Wojnarowicz is known as the first American gay artists who responded to the AIDS epidemic with “anger and moral outrage” and angered Christian homophobes including Rev. Donald Wildmon, Jesse Helms and the Catholic church.

On the panel will be Rebecca Dimling Cochran of ArtsCriticATL, Jason Franciso of the Emory Visual Arts Department and Michael Rooks of the High Museum of Art.

Also on the panel are Andy Ditzler of Frequent Small Meals and Joey Orr of the Emory Visual Scholarship Initiative.

Ditzler and Orr, along with Wesley Chenault, make up the John Q collective and last year produced the popular “Memory Flash” — a performance, installation and film projection event that highlighted Atlanta’s queer history.

Emory’s event is part of a national discussion on the controversy surrounding “A Fire in My Belly” that is being chronicled by www.hideseek.org.

To view examples of Wojnarowicz’s radical and groundbreaking work, click here.

The screenings and discussion will take place in Emory’s White Hall room 208. For directions and parking information, click here.

Top photo: A scene from the film 'A Fire in My Belly' (by David Wojnarowicz)