NEXT CITY: Audio Installation Makes NYC’s AIDS Memorial ‘Live, Breathe and Feel Alive’

December 1st marks World AIDS Day — and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the NYC AIDS Memorial installed the most ambitious program since the memorial was founded as a grassroots activist advocacy effort in early 2011.

“Hear Me: Voices of the Epidemic” is a daily, hour-long outdoor sound installation composed of historical texts, poetry, speeches and music that capture the history of the AIDS epidemic, including protest recordings and a song composed by the late musician and AIDS activist Michael Callen. “A lot of these sounds, poems and news reports could really be from this week,” NYC AIDS Memorial executive director Dave Harper says about the installation’s resonance. “They’re saying the same things we’ve been saying for 40 years — that access to healthcare is a human right, that there’s crisis after crisis and it doesn’t always feel like someone is listening.”