Sites of Queer Dying in NYC During the AIDS Epidemic

How can we protect the commemoration of queer history amid the wavering guardianship of government agencies? The current onslaught of federal actions seeking to erase queer heritage demands that traditional frameworks of remembering be adapted or reimagined. In partnership with the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, this series of participatory, place-based workshops aims to support ongoing efforts for safeguarding the lived experience  of queer communities, while fostering cross-organizational alliances.

Building on the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project’s legacy of documentary advocacy, this project employs a community-driven methodology designed to address institutional erasure. The intended outcomes are threefold: (1) strengthening our partner's queer archival and programming initiatives, (2) hosting workshops with diverse partners to define community-driven memorialization strategies, and (3) creating an event or installation on Hart Island, the city’s public cemetery where several AIDS burials took place without formal recognition or an interpretive strategy. To determine what would constitute a fitting archival entry and memorialization in the public realm, this collaborative process will involve Pratt students from the Historic Preservation and Landscape Architecture programs, and members of New York’s queer community. A collective teach-in will bring partners together to synthesize local findings and share strategies, and satellite events and publications will disseminate the outcomes of this process.

By using a queer lens to address questions of community resiliency, this project also speaks to the interrelation between open space and social justice. It posits that the right to the city includes the right to self-recognition in the cityscape and aims to promote agency and autonomy among queer communities to preserve narratives outside the canon.