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The National AIDS Memorial grew out of the response of a small
group of people to the devastation wrought by AIDS in the San
Francisco gay community. They envisioned a place that could
memorialize those who had died, increase public awareness of
the crisis, and serve as a sanctified public space for remembering
and reflecting. In 1989, through a unique public-private partnership
with San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department, a
neglected and unused site was chosen in the heart of Golden
Gate Park.
September 19, 1991 marked the first workday and is considered
the birthday of what came to be known as the Grove. Over 200
people attended that day, including politicians and dignitaries.
Three years later, with major endowment initiatives underway,
a 99-year renewable lease was signed with the City of San Francisco.
In 1996, under the stewardship of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
(now House Minority Leader), the Grove became a national memorial.
Unlike most memorials, the animating vision of the founders
was the concept of a living memorial, one that renews and rebuilds
as well as remembers. The acts of organizing, gardening, and
just being in the Grove were part of the healing process, creating
a living testimony to renewal.
The original designers of the Memorial wanted the journey through
the Grove to be a metaphor for the struggle with AIDS by both
victims and survivors. The journey begins with the descent from
the mundane activity of the street into a secluded and shadowed
area, and then moves through isolation and darkness to eventual
re-emergence into light. The space was envisioned as a sacred
and silent space set apart from the city. With portals to define
entrances, the elongated form of a bowl, and the inclusion of
spaces for gathering and solitude, the memorial becomes a kind
of cathedral. Hardscape design elements, like the Circle of
Friends (with engraved names of those “touched by AIDS”)
incorporate broken round forms – “circles that get
broken when people die.”
Originally conceived as a way to involve the community in the
Grove and take advantage of much needed labor, workdays have
become a cornerstone of the National AIDS Memorial. Partners,
families and friends of those lost to AIDS make up the memorial’s
corps of volunteers. Since 1991 thousands of volunteers have
given more than 50,000 hours of their time at regularly scheduled
workdays. Over the years, the Grove has become more fully built
and filled in, just as treatment for HIV has improved. As the
crisis nature of the epidemic has changed, so have the workdays.
Urgency has given way to care and reverence. To this day, volunteer
labor, along with a full-time gardener, keeps the grove planted
and maintained.
Through the years the National AIDS Memorial has become an almost
secret, sanctified place for private healing rituals and profound
moments of reflection and connection. Despite this rich story
and fertile ground, the National AIDS Memorial remains relatively
unknown. FORGET ME NOT will change this, bringing the Memorial
and the idea of memorial into the light.
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