Remediating AIDS Archives

Abstract

In response to mainstream narratives of AIDS history, which too often highlight only experiences of white, cisgender gay men, this article argues that an analysis of recent AIDS activist media is crucial to complicate mainstream representations. It looks to recent video work as an important site of a diversified AIDS history and analyzes three videos made by Thomas Allen Harris, Shanti Avirgan, and Nguyen Tan Hoang for the Visual AIDS Alternate Endings series. Instead of presenting AIDS history as firmly embedded in the past, much of this newer work intertwines past and present to show the ongoing nature of the crisis. Many videos use archival footage to highlight the persistent nature of racism, poverty, drug use stigma, and health care barriers in the epidemic. Through temporal contrast, the videos powerfully show that progress is not always linear, and the past has much to teach us about the present.