Travel: Washington DC 1996

Seeing the entire AIDS Quilt assembled in one place is extraordinary. It gives you this strange feeling of an intense paradox or duality. Part of you wants to go find some dark corner and sit alone and cry over what you see and what it means. But another part of you wants to throw a party--or at least join one--because of what the quilt looks like and what it represents. Some of the panels are so beautiful and all of them are the result of love and friendship and caring so that even though the catalyst for its existence is terrible, the fact that it exists is also wonderful. While all of the panels are wonderful, these two pictures to the left are some truly spectacular panels.

I found the panels fairly easy to view--probably because they are mostly cheery and commemorative, and the fact that I am fortunate to know only two people who have died of AIDS. However, the hardest, most intense emotional experience there (for me) we the Signature Squares where people write messages to those they've lost. They are more immediate and emotional than the panels and (as you can see below) grab for your heart with a vengeance and power that is overwhelming. It was these messages that moved me the most:

 

www.nathan.com | experience design | thoughts | projects | inspirations | photography | me | travel