For my second civic artifact, I decided to go with “Untitled” (A Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Félix Gonzáles-Torres. This installation was created in 1991 as an allegorical representation of Ross Laycock, Gonzáles-Torres’s partner, who died from an AIDS-related illness that same year. The installation is ideally 175 lbs worth of candy, which viewers are supposed to take when they view the piece. This represents Laycock’s weight loss as his illness progressed. However, the pile of candy is refilled to be approximately 175 lbs or more to metaphorically give Laycock perpetual life.

For this civic artifact, I will also be using the public memory lens as well as the visual rhetoric lens to compare it to the AIDS Memorial Quilt’s goals as a memorial. “Untitled” works with the public memory lens because it effectively engages with the audience’s empathy. Because the audience is allowed to take a piece of candy from the pile, they are actively witnessing and partaking in Laycock’s “suffering”, allowing them to understand the devastation, pain, and loss that comes with AIDS. From a visual standpoint, this is an interesting piece that changes every time the candy pile is replenished. The candy used is commercially distributed candy wrapped in bright, multicolor cellophane, positioned in a corner of the room, and never stays the same.

While the AIDS Memorial Quilt and “Untitled” are obviously different: one is a large memorial quilt made up of approximately 50,000 pieces, each piece unique to a person who passed away, and it raised thousands of dollars for AIDS research in the ’80s – and the other is an edible art installation from the ’90s, unique to a single person with the intention of raising awareness of the intimate suffering of those with AIDS while still honoring one’s late partner.

The AIDS Quilt is effective as a larger memorial because it wanted to show the scale of the devastation caused by the AIDS crisis and it built solidarity between a large community of those who lost someone to the disease. This piece was created during the height of the AIDS crisis and heavily contributed to raising funds for researching treatment options for those affected through its large audience.

“Untitled” is effective as a smaller, more personal piece because it focuses on an individual and his relationship with the artist. While the AIDS Quilt focuses on the number of people lost, this piece focuses on emphasizing the effects of AIDS-related illnesses and their toll on the human body.

However, both focus on raising awareness about the devastation of AIDS and the AIDS crisis while honoring individuals – whether as a group or alone- who passed. Both are dedicated acts of love that utilize rhetorical devices to persuade their audiences to care about other’s well-being, especially those who are part of marginalized groups. To witness either is a humbling experience, regardless of size, medium, or time period.

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991 – Felix Gonzalez-Torres – WikiArt.org

I.Intro:

A. Attention Getter: According to the World Health Organization, 39 million people globally were diagnosed with HIV at the end of 2022. In the same year, approximately 630,000 people died from HIV- related causes. While the disease as well as its third stage, AIDS, is treatable today with antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the form of both pills and shots, before 1987, there was no treatment available despite intense research efforts.

B. Connect to Artifact: In the late 1980’s, the AIDS Epidemic was the number one concern for public health, yet, because HIV primarily afflicted gay men, drug users, and immigrants (particularly immigrants of color), the U.S. government did little to initially address the epidemic. Hundreds of thousands died from not only the virus but government inaction. So, in 1987, Cleve Jones founded the NAMES Project Foundation and created the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

C. Thesis: The personal and unique memorial documents, celebrates, and grieves the lives of those who have died because of AIDS by utilizing the public memory and visual rhetoric lenses to force people to recognize the danger of the epidemic through collective identity so as to move towards acquiring accessible treatment for those infected with HIV.

D. Preview: By identifying and analyzing the quilt through public memory and visual rhetoric lenses, the intentions of Cleve Jones and the NAMES Project Foundation, raising awareness and advocating for social justice as well as honoring individuals while using art to convey their lives on fabric, become very apparent.

II.First Set of Arguments

A. Claim: When examined through the public memory lens, the AIDS Memorial Quilt encourages audiences to empathize with the victims of the AIDS crisis, building a community of people who are not only aware of the impact of HIV/AIDS but aware of the individuals who were lost on the road to developing treatment.

B. Evidence: After its initial display in front of the National Mall on October 11, 1988, the quilt was taken on a 4-month long tour, during which it was displayed across 20 cities to raise awareness about the impact of the disease. Over $500,000 was raised for AIDS service organizations and by the end of the tour the quilt had grown to over 6,000 panels. In 1989 the quilt was taken on a second tour through 19 states, and Canada, during which over a quarter of a million dollars were raised for AIDS service organizations.

C. Reasoning: By the time the quilt was displayed in 1992, it contained panels from every state and 28 countries. While displaying the quilt gathered a large audience, millions in fact, by touring it across North America, the NAMES Project Foundation was not only able to create a global community of loved ones who could honor those they had lost, but they reached a wider audience to spread awareness about the disease and raised money to go towards service organizations that actively supported and cared for those infected.

Basic Statistics | HIV Basics | HIV/AIDS | CDC

Opportunistic Infections | Living with HIV | HIV Basics | HIV/AIDS | CDC

Sex Education History: AIDS Changed Everything | Time

HIV/AIDS Timeline – Crisis, 1980s, Protests (history.com)

History (aidsmemorial.org)

Thank you for reading over my draft, I’d appreciate any and all feedback to improve my speech! I’d especially like to know if anything I wrote could be more concise or specific since I tend to write more than I need to. I would also like to know if I analyzed the “Public Memory Lens” properly.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt

• • Public Memory: collective memory, contestation – The persuasiveness of commemorations, monuments, memorials, museums, etc. in relation to collective identity
  • Social Movement Studies: solidarity, ideologies, strategies and tactics, obstacles, evolving ideas -How movements emerge, build solidarity, and make change (or not)
  • Visual Rhetoric: font, color theory, symbol, contrast, object placement -Visual design choices that guide viewers to an interpretation.

I chose the AIDS Memorial Quilt as my civic artifact.

After reviewing the different lenses from Keywords, Public Memory, Social Movement, and Visual Rhetoric are the lenses that fit best with my artifact. The memorial’s goal was to document the lives of those who had been lost to AIDS, afraid that if they were not explicitly documented, history would forget them just as the media and government were ignoring the epidemic’s deaths.

NAMES, the organization that created the quilt, wanted to force people to recognize the danger of the epidemic, of ignoring it, so they could gain momentum in moving towards accessible treatment for all. Their primary goal not only fits with Public Memory but also with Social Movement Studies, as the quilt not only persuades the audience to recognize collective identity but was a project that sparked solidarity across communities and garnered positive change. The quilt raised over $500,000 for AIDS service organizations in its 4-month, 1988 tour and raised awareness about the impact of the disease across 20 cities.

While these two lenses would be my ideal two to examine this monument through, the Visual Rhetoric and its emotional appeal stand out to me as well. The quilt is handmade, now consisting of over 50,000 panels, and each of those panels was made by people who lost someone they loved. Each panel is unique to that deceased person and their life, and all of the panels were hemmed to 3×6 feet; the dimensions of a grave. It’s a powerful monument that explicitly recognizes individuals, their lives, and deaths, and that intense emotional appeal based on the visual design shouldn’t be ignored.

I feel it necessary to look at the AIDS Memorial Quilt through these 3 lenses to fully understand its impact.

For my civic artifact speech, I would like to focus on the Aids Memorial Quilt.

The quilt is a memorial conceived by Cleve Jones in 1985 and continues to be added to today to document and honor the lives of those who have lost their lives to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In the late 1980’s, the AIDS Epidemic was the number one concern for public health, yet, because the virus primarily afflicted gay men, drug users, and immigrants (particularly immigrants of color), the U.S. government did little to initially address the epidemic. Approximately 1.1 million people in the U.S. were infected with HIV during this 40-year period, and hundreds of thousands died from not only the virus but government inaction.

As a rhetorical situation, the quilt’s exigence is the AIDS Epidemic, and the goal of the project was to document and honor the lives of those who were lost to the syndrome during a period of time when deaths were covered up or even ignored because of (primarily) homophobic stigma. Today the quilt continues to raise awareness of the disease, remind us of our nation’s history, and build a strong community centered on love in the face of loss.

There have been multiple audiences who have witnessed the quilt, especially considering it has been displayed publicly across the United States. Initially, it was displayed on October 11, 1987, at the National Mall in Washington D.C. during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Celebrities, politicians, the general public, and half a million people attended the inaugural ceremony.

The primary constraints of this memorial (size and accessibility) have been generally overcome. The quilt is available to be viewed online, for free. It continues to be added to in segmented panels, both digitally and physically, and can still be viewed in person during display ceremonies.