Client: Seattle Parks Foundation

Overview

The story of AIDS is the story of loss, love and resilience. The AIDS Memorial Pathway uses public art and augmented reality technology to create a place for remembrance and reflection, share stories about the epidemic and the diverse community responses to the crisis in Seattle, and provide a call to action to end HIV/AIDS, stigma, and discrimination.

Stretching over a block and half, The AMP extends into the north end of Cal Anderson park integrating 5 meaning-filled public artworks including a digital AR memorial and history tour into a public plaza, community meeting room and reflection garden.

In 2022, The AMP was awarded the Technology Award by the Association of King County Historical Organizations.

Goals

A passionate group of volunteers and community leaders in King County, including people living with HIV, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ people, came together to create The AMP. They set three goals:

• Use public art and technology to create a physical place for reflection and remembrance in Seattle about the AIDS epidemic
• Share stories of the epidemic and the diverse community responses to the crisis
• Provide a call to action to end HIV/AIDS, stigma, and discrimination

Process

Using a Placemaking approach, volunteers and community leaders worked closely with residents, historians, activists, artists and designers as well as public and private sector officials from the Museum of History and Industry, the Office of Arts and Culture, Seattle Parks Department, Seattle Public Utilities, Seatle Deparment of Neighborhoods and Sound Transit to envision and design The AMP.

The Capitol Hill neighborhood, long considered to be the heart of the LGBTQ community, and one greatly impacted by HIV and AIDS, was selected as the site. Much of the AIDS activism and community organizations that arose to care for their own and continue to fight the epidemic trace their origins to this neighborhood.

Additional Information

An AR app and website provide HIV resources and history along with a guide and interactions for the artowrks: As the site centerpiece, "andimgonnamisseverybody" consisting of an "X" of speakers offers a portal into a space of radical gathering, hospitality, celebration and care that black, brown, poor, trans, queer and otherwise excluded communities have forged to take care of our own. As a collection of biographical portraits, "In This Way We Loved One Another" is a historical remediation, restoring missing narratives of working class activists, healers, leaders, witnesses and ancestors lost to the AIDS crisis. "We're Already Here" transforms historic protest signs into monumental form to commemorate the collective action that defines Seattle's dynamic response to the AIDS crisis. "Ribbon of Light" illuminates a landscaped garden with 3 glass sculptures representing pieces of the sky that have broken into framgents and fallen to the ground, allowing the illumination of our communal mourning and embodying the ephemeral, changing and shifting nature of grief. "The Names Tree" is an the interactive AR tree that stands as a digital memorial to those that have been lost to AIDS as the disceased names are recited in perpetuity.