AEGiS-BAYW: AIDS history exhibit extended

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS history exhibit extended

Bay Windows - June 22, 2006
Laura Kiritsy, lkiritsy@baywindows.com

If you missed the multi-media exhibit "Above and Beyond: Our Community Responds to HIV/AIDS" at the Jorge Hernandez Cultural Center in Boston's South End earlier this month, you've still got a chance to take in The History Project's stunning chronology of the LGBT community's efforts in the fight against the epidemic over the last 25 years: The exhibit's free public display has been extended through June 25 at Calderwood Pavillion's Dean Hall, also in the South End, under the sponsorship of AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.

The exhibit's move to the Tremont Street theater coincides with Opera Unlimited's production of Angels in America, an operatic adaptation of Tony Kushner's play about the social, religious, political and personal dimensions of AIDS in the Reagan era. "We felt that there were an awful lot of people who'd come in to Boston for something as wonderful as Angels in America who may not have made it to Jorge Hernandez," explained Diego Sanchez, AAC's director of public relations and social marketing, of the move. The exhibit opened at the Pavillion on June 20 at a reception that featured commentary by History Project Co-chair Pat Gozemba and Richard Dickinson, who designed the exhibition.

The centerpiece of "Above and Beyond" is a collection of 20 free-standing panels that comprise a photographic timeline of the escalation of the AIDS crisis in Boston and the response from the local LGBT community. The exhibit also includes AIDS Quilt panels, oral histories, protest memorabilia from ACT UP/Boston and prevention campaign posters from the early days of the epidemic. "I think that faces tell stories in a way that words don't sometimes," Sanchez said of the exhibit's power. The exhibit's focus on the disease's impact on the Boston area, said Sanchez, "forces us or compels us to take a look at our history relative to how this disease has affected our lives and the lives of the people around us for the last quarter century."

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