the papi project the papi project investigates the era of the
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THE PAPI PROJECT
The Papi Project investigates the era of the AIDS epi-demic and the generational loss of queer/gay men through photography and sculpture. A personal investigation and memorial to the history of my queer family, the project is also a tribute to the generations lost to the AIDS epidemic.
The photographic component of The Papi Project has two parts. The first involves capturing the contemporary remains of 70s, 80s, and 90s public hookup spots in Chicago, NYC, LA, Key West and Miami. These landscapes are docu-mented with 110 film, a tourist film camera that was popular in the 1980s. For the second part, I curate slideshows, dip-tych, tripychs, and books from three thousand photographs that my own papi (dad) took of his queer family, children and pets. Slideshows are presented with a mixed soundtrack of iconic disco songs from the 70s, similar to Nan Goldin’s screenings of her work from queer culture in 1980s NYC. The archival photographs emphasize the intersection of queers, children and pets - an exploration of the queer nuclear family. Together, these photographs are sites of new forms of distrib-uted intimacies. The photographic landscapes are reimagined, curated and found, and revived from the era of the AIDS epidemic. The archival images are representations of the queer nuclear family, which is gathered from my papi’s images, yet are also documentations of the demise of his/my queer/gay male family.
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In addition, I am creating sculptures that reconstruct objects found in the archival photographs. Objects like cat water bowls, party remnants, a bust and a collection of ciga-rettes and alcohol will exist as signifiers of a memorial. Technology eradicated cruising spaces of the past, yet I use technology to recreate these objects from the archival photo-graphs. This is a symbolic act of rebuilding the generations lost from complications of AIDS.
I am interested in the reenactment of these sites of intimacy. The photographic landscapes are devoid of humans, yet are locations of past interactions and intimate moments. The present contemporary landscapes carry a loaded history, and I am exploring the remnants, the changes, the barrenness and the historically lost subtext. These green spaces are no longer identifiable or connected to their historical cruising roots. This inherently becomes a dialogue with the rise of tech-nology, which in conjunction with the AIDS epidemic abol-ished many of these green spaces and public sites of sexual interaction. The rise of technology shifted the intimacies of these spaces. The photographic landscapes are evidence. The Papi Project began with my papi but ultimately begins a dia-logue about the mass devastation of queer men during the AIDS epidemic.
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