them: How a New Generation of AIDS Memorials Is Shedding Light on the Epidemic

On May 18, 1981, physician and writer Dr. Lawrence Mass reported on an “exotic new disease” affecting the gay community for New York City’s local gay paper, The New York Native. By the end of that year, 130 people in the United States had died from the mystery illness. By the end of the decade, over 100,000 had died of AIDS.

Memorials have long sought to make sense of this cascading, exponential explosion of grief. The catastrophic emotional weight of the AIDS crisis at its peak cannot be overstated. In his scathing 1983 essay entitled “1,112 and Counting” for The New York Native, Larry Kramer, activist, playwright, and founder of ACT UP, reflected on the devastating loss, condemning those who remained passive in the face of despair.