Tag: death and art

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Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Grief + Mourning Monuments + Memorials

Seeing The AIDS Memorial Quilt in New York in 2014

Photos: See The AIDS Quilt On Governors Island
Gothamist (August 12, 2014)

On Monday and Tuesday of last week, a portion of the AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display in New York for the first time in over 10 years.

I posted about this chance to see the AIDS Quilt and then made a point of seeing it myself.

I last saw the AIDS Quilt twenty years ago.

There isn’t much to say other than this section of the AIDS Quilt was displayed on Governors Island in New York. Governors Island is beautiful and it’s been turned into a wonderful park area.

That said, seeing the Quilt this way made it feel like a Plague Island. Or an Anti-Contagion Zone of a kind.

Twenty or Twenty-five years ago, this section of the Aids Memorial Quilt would have been on display in Central Park.

I have no doubt.

You can see photos on the Gothamist page.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Monuments + Memorials

Section of AIDS Memorial Quilt on Display Next Week in New York

See the AIDS Quilt in NYC for First Time in a Decade
Irene Plagianos, DNAInfo New York (August 6, 2014)

In an unexpected turn of events, a section of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt arrives in New York City next week. Most people simply call it the AIDS Memorial Quilt or even the AIDS Quilt.

It’s really worth checking out.

Here are the details:

A large piece of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be displayed on Governors Island next week, marking its first visit to New York City in more than a decade.

 

The 57,600-square-foot section of the quilt — made from thousands of panels dedicated to people who have died from AIDS — will be unfolded across a football field-sized area of the island.

Visitors will be able to view the quilt from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 11 and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 12.

 

A special dedication ceremony will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 11, and members of the public will be able to participate in a name reading ceremony.

I was able to see the AIDS Quilt a few times during the 1990s. One of those viewings involved going to the original AIDS Memorial Quilt building in San Francisco. I’ll never forget it.

Here are some videos about the Quilt in the event you have no idea what this post is about.

It is also worth noting that it’s now impossible to display the entire AIDS Quilt in one place since it’s become too large.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Humor Monuments + Memorials

Day 23: Death Ref John as a 19th Century Postmortem Photograph

Professor Bellows Photography
Mall of America, Minneapolis, MN (USA)

In summer 2006, Argentinian artist Ana Lois-Borzi and I collaborated on a postmortem photography project.

Ana and I both lived in Minneapolis at the time and we had gotten to know each other through the local art scene. Our earliest encounters were at Gus Lucky’s Art Gallery on East Lake Street, which is sadly long gone.

We decided that we wanted to create 19th century-style postmortem photos of each other but we didn’t want to use her studio. So, we did the only logical thing we could. We went to the Mall of America’s old timey photo studio (linked to above) and paid to have one of their eager-to-please employees take our photographs.

The catch was this– we didn’t tell the photographer what we were doing so we became ‘dead’ right as the photo was taken.

Ana Lois-Borzi Postmortem Photograph

It was obvious to us both, that Ana was far better at becoming dead than me. It’s in the hands, we both agreed. My hands don’t look very dead. Ana’s hands = totally dead.

We had plans to travel around the United States so that we could visit as many old timey photo studios as possible.

Alas, I moved and we put the project on hold.

But one day, and hopefully soon, we’ll both go back to being photographically dead.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Technology

Day 9: Tick-Tock Goes This Mortal Coil’s Clock

Nothing Focuses The Mind Like The Ultimate Deadline: Death
A Swedish inventor came up with a wristwatch that counts down the seconds left in your life. He calls it “the happiness watch” because he thinks living with the reality of one’s mortality can enhance how we value our lives.
Lulu Miller, National Public Radio (December 31, 2013)

At the very end of last year, National Public Radio ran a story by Lulu Miller about a watch that can ‘predict’ when you’re going to die.

It’s a clever invention that is obviously geared towards cultivating conversations about death and dying as opposed to locking-in a termination date.

I’m not sure that you need a watch to get those discussions rolling, but I’m open to all possibilities.

The wonder of producing the 31 Days of Death is that it’s possible to pull stories from the files that never made it to the Death Reference Desk for numerous reasons.

Give the story a listen. It’s time well spent.