Michele Cinq-Mars, Director of Communications for the NAMES Project, talks to Ian Kember about the AIDS Memorial Quilt. This recording was possibly made at the offices of the NAMES Project on Market Street. Ian recorded the interview for the Gay BC radio programme in Wellington, but also deposited it with the New Zealand AIDS Quilt, allowing it to be heard more widely.
Summary
This summary provides an overview of an audio recording featuring Michele Cinq-Mars, Director of Communications for the NAMES Project, who discusses the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interview conducted by Ian Kember on June 26, 1991. Recorded in San Francisco, possibly at the NAMES Project office on Market Street, Cinq-Mars reflects on their personal journey with the project and broader responses to the AIDS epidemic.
Cinq-Mars marks their one-year anniversary with the project and explains their initial encounter with the quilt in Washington D.C. in 1988. While working for the American Response to AIDS Campaign, Cinq-Mars was moved deeply by the memorial, which they describe as unlike any other, portraying not just names but the lives, hobbies, preferences, and diversity of those lost to the epidemic.
The quilt, which began as a politically empowering project, displays panels representing people who passed away from AIDS, illustrating the virus's broad, indiscriminate impact. Cinq-Mars underlines the difficulty in finding a single point of failure in the spread of AIDS, emphasizing it is not like the mechanical failure leading to a plane crash but rather a complex issue exacerbated by a lack of education.
In their current role, Cinq-Mars is focused on coordinating quilt displays across the United States, providing support and promotional materials to local host committees to ensure the memorial reaches as many people as possible. Despite regional differences across the country, they note that everywhere they have taken the quilt, it has attracted support and elicited strong emotional reactions.
Cinq-Mars observes that the quilt has achieved significant recognition, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and an Academy Award for a related documentary, "Common Threads." Additionally, they contemplate the public's perception of people living with AIDS, advocating for the importance of recognizing them as individuals, not victims, and noting positive shifts in media representation over time.
The quilt's itinerary is expansive, encompassing various locations, and while not all panels travel to each display, they are all part of the overarching memorial. Cinq-Mars discusses the goal of returning the quilt in its entirety to Washington D.C. in 1992, highlighting the educational and emotional significance of the quilt—even contemplating its future role beyond the discovery of a potential cure for HIV/AIDS.
Lastly, regarding the marketing of related merchandise, it is mentioned that there are connections with Australia, and there may be opportunities for promoting AIDS memorial related items, including in regions such as New Zealand.
This summary is created using Generative AI. Although it is based on the recording's transcription, it may contain errors or omissions. Click here to learn more about how this summary was created.
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