Interview: Jim Hubbard
How did you come to the ACT UP Oral History Project?
Sarah Shulman and I started the Project in June of 2001, around the time of the 20th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic. The struggles around the AIDS crisis had been largely forgotten. Younger people did not know what went on. We decided the most appropriate response was an oral history project, because people with AIDS and those in the trenches are the real experts. They should be given the opportunity to speak for themselves, to record history as they created it. Sarah and I have been working together for 27 years. We also co-founded MIX-the New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, which is the Project’s fiscal sponsor.
Tell us a little about your work there.
We’ve now done 172 interviews, each one-to-four hours long. We have complete transcripts and 168 video clips, all downloadable for free on our website. Unedited tapes of many of the interviews can be viewed at the San Francisco Main Library and the New York Public Library Manuscripts & Archives Division (Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street). Harvard College Library has promised to put all the interviews in their entirety on the web. I drew from this material to make my film United In Anger: A History of ACT UP, which had its world premier at the Museum of Modern Art in February 2012. It has been shown around the world and on every continent. Last Tuesday, I did a showing at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, for a group of students whose lives are still very much affected by HIV. The event was co-sponsored by the Health Education Department, the Community Health Group and the Student Parent Group. The idea that AIDS is over was certainly belied by our conversation after the film. In early December, Sarah and I are leaving for seven screenings in Japan.
What do you think about the Memorial?
It think it’s long overdue. One thing the Memorial and the Oral History Project share is that they both came out of the realization that people have forgotten or are too young to know what really occurred. It’s critical to remember what happened, especially in the 80’s and 90’s. Our city government behaved very badly throughout a large chunk of the epidemic. I think they should be paying for the Memorial. And there was a lot of gay bashing from St. Vincent’s from their staff and clergy. The Memorial is an historical intervention that is much-needed.
Who or what will you be remembering at the Memorial?
Yesterday was the 29th anniversary of the death of Roger Jacoby, my first lover. He was a crazy, intense experimental filmmaker who got sick in 1984. He will be uppermost in my memory, but there are dozens of others.