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HOW CAN THE LANGUAGE OF NIGHTLIFE SHOWCASE THE HISTORY OF THE AIDS CRISIS?
“Paint the Town Red” is an experimental multimedia installation using the language of queer parties to showcase the overwhelming loss, resilience, and triumph found during the AIDS crisis in NYC. While its been nearly 30 years since the height of the AIDS crisis, the loss of an entire generation of queer people can still be felt today in the absence of those missing. In New York alone, over 100,000 people had died of AIDS by 2014. Human beings lack the ability to truly process values that large, let alone showcase the individual stories that come with that scale of tragedy. Names, faces, bodies, sounds, and forms can allow an emotive connection to stories where numbers can come up short and where pure description cannot fully convey feeling.
In this installation, I rediscover the people behind the data set using the language of bittersweet, genuine queer joy experienced before, during, and after the AIDS crisis. Some feelings cannot be purely articulated in one category or another and often joy, shame, despair, pride, and elation can coincide and flow into one another in ways that words cannot hold. I wish to showcase that experience from a queer perspective, honor those who came before us, and continue to showcase the stories of LGBTQ+ people finding meaning in a world not always meant for them.
Using layered fringe garland in different colors, the length of each section represents yearly deaths from HIV, yearly infections, and yearly survival rates respectively in black, red, and white garland. Around the installation is graffiti-style writing indicating different important historical events, deaths, infections, survival of individual people, and quotes from individuals describing their experiences as the crisis progressed. Overlaid are colored lights and a projection of archival footage from queer nightlife from the different eras described in the data. Audio showcases historically appropriate club music, as well as spoken dialogue from individuals speaking about their stories through this era. The display is decorated below with party refuse: solo cups, fallen confetti, loose trash.
Viewers are encouraged to come close to the installation, examine the details, inhabit the space, and become a part of this party itself.