METROPOLIS: Songs of Activism and Solidarity Adorn New York City’s AIDS Memorial

By: Osman Can Yerebakan

One critical goal of public art is to engage with every passerby in order to foster a dialogue within communities. For multimedia artist, Steven Evans, music is just one way of achieving this. After coming of age during the height of the United States’ AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, Evans has drawn inspiration from his youth’s pop songs for his latest temporary installation at New York City’s AIDS Memorial. The result memorializes and celebrates the queer struggle—then and now.