Public Memory and Forgetting: Making Visible the Invisibility of Loss in the San Francisco AIDS Pandemic
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Abstract
It is well known that we depend on our memory
for our individual and collective sense of identity,
meaning, and purpose. We assign significance to past,
present, and future events through inter-subjective
and ordered memories as we make meaning in the
world. And yet, as suggested by author Bradford
Vivian, memory does not exist in isolation but rather
in a surprising symbiotic relationship with forgetting.
Utilizing the interplay of absence and presence, as well
as remembering and forgetting, this thesis explores
architecture as the holder and creator of memory,
exposing the hidden and invisible dimension of the
AIDS pandemic of the 1980’s.
Inspired by the lives of 12 different people, places,
and objects unique to the AIDS pandemic, along
with writings by Paul Monette and John Hejduk,
this project seeks to disclose and remember while
instilling a sense of hope and healing. Located in the
East Cut of downtown San Francisco, the architecture
revives memories in a direct relationship with the
contemporary citizens of San Francisco by setting
the imaginary into the fictional and releasing singular
stories to the shared horizon in architectural terms.