Theodore (ted) Kerr is a Canadian born, Brooklyn based writer and organizer. He is the co-author of We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production (with Alexandra Juhasz, Duke University Press). Kerr is a founding member of What Would an HIV Doula Do? He curated the exhibition AIDS, Posters and Stories of Public Health: A People's Pandemic for the National Libraries of Medicine. He was an oral historian for Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project for the Smithsonian, Archives for American Art. He teaches at The New School and Manhattan College.

STAN WALDEN: Alright, we are recording. Um, my name is Stan Walden. I'm here with ted Kerr. It's June 11th [2024]. We're at the University Center Library, uh, on, uh, 13th Street, Fifth Avenue. Um, and before we go further, I just wanna ask you, Ted, do I have your permission to record this conversation?

THEODORE KERR: Yes, Stan, you have my permission.

WALDEN: Thank you. Um, so you just saw my, uh, copy of your book, "We Are Having This Conversation Now," written by, uh, your colleague, Alexandra—is it Juhasz?

KERR: Yeah. Perfect.

WALDEN: Uh, and yourself. Um, uh, "... The Times of AIDS and Culture Production," um, which I tore through over the weekend, and we'll have to revisit more slowly in the future. But in any case, it's been really wonderful to reference and to just, uh, reevaluate or think further about how I'm coming to this, uh, question, uh, "AIDS at The New School: What is Remembered." Um, and how I, uh, you know, what I'm bringing when I come to the conversation and the, uh, timeline that I'm falling into.

WALDEN: Um, that this conversation, uh, itself is part of. Um, and I was really having a hard time trying to figure out where to start. Um, the topic is overwhelming. I think the work you've done is overwhelming in terms of its breadth and depth. Um, but then I realized, you know, I think to start close to home, um, might be an interesting way to do this. And, uh, in some ways, that's exactly what this project is.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: The AIDS crisis is so sprawling and, um, deep. Uh, and so this whole idea was to, well, let's talk about this place, The New School, this community, uh, and this site as a way to just at least, uh, see what, what we find in terms of what, uh, traces there are. And of course, active conversations and, um, outputs and activist movements.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, and I think the way, um, one detail, uh, you know, big detail from the book is silence is not absence.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And then, um, the first way, one of the first ways I, uh, approached this question was looking at, um, The New School Archive and the records that they have at least, um, those that they have identified and digitized.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And it's interesting to see that it's a pretty great collection. It does drop off at around 2008, which is when in your book, you've identified, um, how, uh, that's the age of revisitation.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, and, um, yeah. So I think you got your BA at The New School, is that right?

KERR: Yeah, that's right.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: That's right.

WALDEN: Um, and so I, I guess I'm just curious how, like, how did you come, how'd you end up here? You've stayed here.

KERR: [laughs]

WALDEN: And I'm sure you've witnessed a lot. Um, but according to the records that I have, I don't know what happened after 2008, so—

KERR: Uh-huh.

WALDEN: Um, but that's not to say that nothing happened. So I, I think to use that as a launching point to the conversation.

KERR: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so I moved to New York late 2010, uh, with a few college classes under my belt with no thought that I would, um, go to school here. Uh, I didn't know about The New School before I came here. I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And, um, I first heard about The New School, I was walking down 12th Street with my friend Apolla, and she pointed to the Tisch Auditorium, the outside Tisch Auditorium, and she said, oh, you should, you should go here. They have good programming. And I was just gonna be here for six months. I was, um, doing—or three months, sorry. I was here on a residency, uh, under the, uh, knowledge of AA Bronson at, um, Union Theological Seminary. And, uh, it just worked out so well, uh, between us that he asked me to stay. And already in 2008, I had interned at Visual AIDS for the summer.

And so while I was, um, hanging out with AA, um, uh, Nelson [Santos] and Amy [Sadao] at Visual AIDS invited me to, you know, become a robust volunteer. And so I did that. And, uh, at some point I was kind of, um, I don't know, I think there's a better word for it, but like, flopping around like a fish, figuring out like what I was gonna do. Um, I, my partner at the time and I had moved here or had come here for three months, it got extended to six months, and then AA offered me a job to work for him in ways that were totally legal. Uh, he would pay me through Canada. So it was like this dream come true. And, uh, personal stuff aside, it worked out. And, uh, and one of the ways that I knew that I could do this without relying on work was to, uh, try to go to school.

[04:56]

And I thought I could just take like little, like, continuing ed courses and that would let the government know that I was serious about staying. But I had to enroll in a BA program. And it all happened really fast. Uh, I got some funding because I was a non-traditional student, which is a nice way of saying like old. [laughs] Um, and I got, um, some funding as part of the Riggio Writing and Democracy program, which is a, which was a cohort-based, uh, program. And already by then a lot of my writing, uh, was about HIV/AIDS. And when I came here as a student, that would've been probably 2012, I had already had some, um, interaction with AIDS and The New School. But as a member of the public. Um, uh, before we started, maybe you saw me like furiously on my phone and furiously writing things down.

It's because on December 3rd, 2011, I attended, um, uh, an amazing event and just let me get the name. It was organized by, uh, Dale Peck. And Dale Peck, um, is a professor here. I don't know if he's a current professor. Um, and he is a very, he's a famous writer, or he's a writer who's maybe most famous for his like stunning, acidic critique. Uh, he's a very smart man who doesn't put up with shit. And, um, and he was, he was really amazing. He is really amazing. And he put together a thing called "Transmissions: the Literature of AIDS." And it was over a multiple day event. And, um, some of the people involved, uh, include Rabih Alameddine, Gary Indiana, uh, Zia Jaffrey, who is a teacher here at The New School, John Kelly, uh, Max Steele was the youngest person involved. He's like, probably—I am, I was born in 79. He's probably born in '82, '83, '85. Like, he's like, uh, I feel like he's a half a generation younger than me. Uh, Jenny Livingston, famously from, um, "Paris is Burning," Amy Scholder, who's like an amazing person, and John Weir. And so the two New School names there are Zia Jaffrey and Dale Peck. And it, it was an amazing and frustrating symposium. Um, it was—referring to the book—it was in a period of silence. It was definitely in the second silence. And everyone on stage, except for Max, was really de- understandably depressed and, and feeling that no one cared about AIDS. And it was in the big Tishman auditorium, and it was almost empty. Like, there was like, maybe, I don't know, I'm sure everybody will have a different recollection, but I think less than 20 people. And I was there with Amy and Nelson from Visual AIDS, and Larry Kramer was there famously.

I don't know if I said that yet. And he, I know that people love him, and we love him for good reasons. I also find him very frustrate—I find some of the things that he said very frustrating. And, um, on stage he kept on saying that young people don't care. Young people are, he was just dismissing young people. Um, and I remember standing up and being like, you know, I can't remember exactly what I said, but basically something through the lines of like, young people are doing things you just might not recognize. It may not look like the way you understand it. And it was an important moment for me, but it was also an important moment for a little bit of intergenerational dialogue, uh, which was really important. And, um, I remember one of the most memorable things from that event was John Weir talking about—so John Weir is a famous writer, um, nonfiction, also great ACT UP activist, uh, most famous for popping his head up on the CBS nightly news.

Um, and he said this thing like, I love Joan Didion. And he came for Joan Didion. He was like, it was recently her famous book. Um, "The Year of Magical Thinking" came out, and it was about her dealing with so much death. And he was just like, I love the book. I'm just confused. How can this woman who was a screenwriter who was in Los Angeles, who has friends in New York, what do you mean she's only dealing with death now in like the 2000s?

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: And it was such a, a funny, compassionate, and true critique. And, uh, it, that's my beginning of HIV and The New School.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. That's great. And then, so you did your program and then how, I mean, I understand that you kind of came into the work of looking at, um, like archives or like kind of what was left behind by people, um, in the early years of the AIDS crisis and beyond. Um, how, was that something you were working through and towards, uh, throughout that program? Or were you, was it more expansive or less concentrated?

KERR: Yeah. I have to be honest, I, it's only in recent years and a lot of, uh, through my work with Alex and through my work at Visual AIDS that I've been invested in the past. So much of my AIDS work was invested in the present.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

[09:56]

KERR: Um, especially in Canada, where I grew to have a group of friends who had all been diagnosed post-, certainly post-1996, but post-2000, post-2010. And I just didn't know where the space was for me as an HIV negative person and them as HIV positive people in this world that was so either silent about AIDS or over determined to be past-looking. And so, um, a lot of my work that I did at The New School when it came to AIDS was, um, that's a good question. Uh, I had Zia Jaffrey in a nonfiction course, and she's a, an excellent writer and editor.

Her relationship to AIDS was very much rooted in the late 1990s. And so, um, she was very encouraging of me trying to find my voice in the present. Um, I, the most important person to help me in that time was my advisor, Tracyann Williams. And, um, she's an amazing person. She's now at Fordham as an advisor and teacher, and she taught, um, I took a class with her here, Narratives of Black Women. And, but as an advisor, I, she was very helpful. She kind of shoved a chip off my shoulder. Because I was the only person that would talk about HIV in class, I, for the first year or so, I often felt like I was the expert, or no one else had any connection to it. And she just very lovingly in a session, told me a story of her life and what she had to deal with at a different time, caring for somebody.

And it just like, uh, shut me the fuck up in the best way possible and taught me to listen better. And something maybe spiritually happened there, because then all of a sudden, the fullness of, not the fullness, but um, the ways in which HIV was ever present at The New School became more obvious to me. One was seeing the visual art all over the walls.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah.

KERR: You know, there's work by, Tseng Kwong Chi, General Idea and other artists—

WALDEN: Yeah, yeah.

KERR: Dealing with HIV in the work that's on the walls. And that had kind of just bypassed me. And then I took a class with Ricardo Montez about New York. And, uh, Ricardo, uh, like all the other people I've talked about so far, had a really holistic idea of what literature meant. And so a lot of his work, a lot of the work that he shared with us was, and wasn't about HIV. And, um, he, I can't remember the—and, and at this time I'm still at Visual AIDS. And so, uh, it's very confusing because I'm a student, I'm also an older student, and I'm programming, so I'm partnering with Ricardo and other, uh, professors here to do, uh, what I would say is pretty meaningful programming. Um, so, uh, I don't know if you want me to talk about that, but I'm—

WALDEN: Yeah. I think that's great.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah, please.

KERR: So, in two, so around this time is when I came into my own thinking about this term as a second, silence as a real thing. I understood it as a useful term that helped shape my understanding. And actually what came first was this idea of revisitation. So while I was working slash interning slash volunteering at Visual AIDS, um, I just noticed the influx of, uh, people probably five to 10 years younger than me, uh, either new to their queerness or excited about their queerness through a MFA program they were in, or just something making them animate their queerness and AIDS was something that they wanted to research. And that was something that Amy and Nelson had not seen for a while. And it was something that I started to call an AIDS phase. It's just like, it seemed like an important phase that people who were not previously committed to AIDS and most likely weren't gonna continue to be connected to HIV, had to go through, wanted to go through this phase where they wanted to understand what the 80s and 90s were like for people in connection with HIV.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And one of the things that I came up with at the time is they just wanted to see what it was like when quote-unquote queer people were winning. And when I say that, I don't want to be disrespectful, of course there was mass death, but there was also, uh, mass mobilization. And a lot of the very powerful images that we have of that time are people standing up for themselves, people standing up against power, uh, people getting drugs into bodies, people saying that their love and their life and their sex and their death mattered. And, and it's, it's a, it's an important lesson. It continues to be an important lesson, and we see that, 'cause it gets brought to the present by, uh, people who are trying to end, uh, shootings in schools, by people who are fighting for trans rights, people who are, uh, trying to end the genocide. Right? 

Like that moment of AIDS activism still is deeply resonant. So of course, it was resonant. It's always gonna be resonant for queer people, and I'm seeing that. And so it was the influx of people who were being curious, but then it was also this like, bubbling up of mainstream or almost mainstream popular culture looking at HIV/AIDS with a backwards lens. And so I'd noticed it first in 2008, um, with a documentary about Richard Berkowitz and the creation of safer sex. And that was interesting to me because it was made by a straight man, and it very much was like, "hey, there was this crazy thing called the AIDS Crisis." And, um, and then by 2011 and 2012, the world was just filled, most, filled with these kind of works, most famously, "How to Survive a Plague, "United in Anger," uh, both being documentaries, but also "Dallas Buyers Club," exhibitions in New York, where AIDS was, work by artists living with HIV was ever-present.

[15:55]

You don't have a New York art world without people living with HIV, but it, they weren't always named as people with HIV and they weren't, their work about HIV wasn't always shown, but that started to change. And so I used this—a little bit earlier. I kept on using the word renaissance wrong, and so I was scared of the word renaissance, but I was like, no, this is a revisitation, or it we're not, it's like, we're going back and looking. And so, um, with Ricardo and Tamara [Oyola-Santiago], who is at Health Services [at The New School], um, we created a two day symposium, entitled Revisiting the AIDS Crisis and the Ongoing Pandemic: Public Health Challenges in the 21st Century. [More info: https://visualaids.org/events/detail/surviving-uniting-anger-and-the-plague] And we were looking at, um, we were looking at AIDS crisis revisitation. And that was, I mean, everybody brought different things to that table. Um, some people wanted to bring a global perspective. Some people, um, wanted to make sure that it was academically rigorous. Um, the thing that I brought was this, uh, was through Visual AIDS bringing together Jim Hubbard and David France.

So the directors of "How to Survive a Plague" and "United in Anger," which was, those films were dividing the community. Some people felt that David France was a bit of a sellout and made for a mainstream, not impacted audience, and didn't respect, um, the lives and deaths of people that they were interacting with. And lots of people felt that "United in Anger" was like the people's history of ACT UP. And so, uh, while I was at Visual AIDS, we, we worked with The New School and brought them together, and it was kind of an amazing event. Again, you get that generational, uh, pull, but then you also get a reminder that good universities hold many different roles in a city. So not only was those, were those events attended by students, faculty and staff, they were attended by the general public, some of whom were already familiar with The New School because they've been coming to public events for years. And that really matters if, you have to have somewhat open doors so that the barrier to entry is non-existent, so that when important cultural events happen, people can come. And I remember the audience for that film was, um, it wasn't disrespectful, but it was rowdy and raucous and unforgiving in a really good way. And it, it may, it reminded me that I would have never been a good member of ACT UP 'cause I, yeah, I don't, my relationship to tension is different.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. What, uh, what year was this? Around?

KERR: This is 2013. Yeah.

WALDEN: Okay.

KERR: And I should say, I guess I'm just remembering. So I have to say like, uh, my, I'm an oral historian. I ask the question. So it's really hard to be on the answering side, and I realize, like how, um, how memory works, it just floods. Um, so, uh, Quito Ziegler, um, not a student at The New School, but an amazing photographer and organizer, um, uh, and LJ Roberts, who has been an instructor here and is an artist. Um, the three of us, all around the same age, all of us kind of circling visual AIDS, LJ as someone who was, um, deeply informed by the Visual AIDS archive, and Keto as somebody who, um, is really big on cross-generational work and so I had been around visual AIDS a lot. Um, I had done a, um, in 2011, I guess I had done a resource guide for a film that visual AIDS had circulated called "Untitled by Jim Hodges."

[Quito, LJ and I] had bonded on that, and we knew that we wanted to do some programming. So I can't remember how it happened. I must have somehow used some connections that I had here at The New School. And we did a three week event, like a weekly event on a Sunday morning, I think it was. And each week, we each took a week and programmed it. Quito’s week for me, was the most memorable because it was, um, we were looking at HIV criminalization and how to push back against it. And, um, Laura Whitehorn, who was, uh, an HIV negative woman who did jail time, came and talked about that. I remember Tourmaline, uh, was one of the first times I ever met Tourmaline, uh, anyways, about HIV prison reform. And it was at The New School, and it was just such an amazing event. I think I did something. I think I just showed a film, I don't really remember. And I don't remember what [Quito] did.

[20:34]

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: I can look back. Sorry. [Update: the event was called , NOT OVER: You, Me, Us, & AIDS, sponsored by Visual AIDS, and organized by artists and activists L.J. Roberts, Quito Ziegler, and Ted Kerr is a three week series of events, that explored the ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS in queer life, hosted at various locations around The New School.] 

WALDEN: Yeah. No, it's great. It's, I mean, it's rich.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, and then at what point did you start teaching at The New School?

KERR: Yeah, good question. Uh, it was 20', uh, it was right before Trump was elected. Um, uh, my, so I, I really like cohort programs, and so I was lucky enough to teach in this cohort program that was originally called Gural, named after the funder, uh, Jeff Gural. Um, but, uh, the students are powerful and, um, they led us to start calling it Freedom Scholars. Uh, so that's just, just for the record, I'll call it Freedom Scholars and not Gural anymore. Gural is G-U-R-A-L. Um, uh, a professor I think burnt out halfway through this semester leading up to the 2016 election. And so I was brought in halfway through, and I remember, uh, the first day of class, 'cause the students had like, can you imagine if your teacher just vanished halfway through a semester? And so in order to build trust, I, for the first day, I said, like, for the first half hour, we're just gonna have a conversation and you can ask me whatever you want.

KERR: And I remember there's this young person who then by, yeah, um, glasses, uh, black hair, very precocious, working. I didn't know, well, I'll say who they were working for after I tell the story, um, they said, "are you voting for Hillary or Trump?" And I knew there wasn't, like, I, you, you can feel when you're walking into a trap. And I was just like, I'm Canadian so I won't be voting.

WALDEN: [laughs]

KERR: And it won them over because—

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: They were still young enough to think that Canadians are good. And, and then he then, uh, the student told me that they worked for Jill Stein and that Jill Stein was the only person to vote for, and anybody else, but Jill Stein was not good. Um, but it was intense to teach. I remember the, obviously, um, the day after the election, The New School just kind of went, I don't know. Everywhere you looked, there was just circles, like chairs in circles and people processing. And David Van Zandt was the president at the time. And, um, he was just like, slinking around, like, he's already a tall figure. But I just was like, "read the room, dude." No one wants a tall white man, like, covering over students crying. Anyway, sorry.

WALDEN: No. Um, it's a vivid picture.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN : Um, and then did your coursework change in terms of what you're teaching or what you had kind of sway in, uh, in terms of a curriculum or bringing your own interests and background into what you're teaching?

KERR: Yeah. So someone I think you're probably talking to or already have talked to Robert, um—

WALDEN: Sember.

KERR: Robert Sember, um, was part of the, um, Freedom Scholars and, uh, was such a, is such a helpful person and is such a generous person with his institutional, with so many things, including his institutional knowledge. And, um, when the opportunity came to submit a course idea, he, 'cause of his extended background in HIV/AIDS was aware of my stuff and he just helped me make a proposal. Uh, and I did. And, uh, I, that would've been 2017 or 2018. It would've, it wasn't, it was like a year into it.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Yeah. So I think 2017 was the first time I taught it.

WALDEN: And what do you find, um, I guess as you are teaching these courses over, um, you know, the last few years, what's the reaction you find with students? Are they kind of coming in with knowledge? Are you finding that you're building the wheel or reinventing the wheel? Or like, how's that, how are these conversations going?

KERR: Yeah, I mean, uh, up until the last two years I would say, like, um, ever since we've come back to in-person teaching it's changed. So I'll speak about before then. Before then, it really was like a LGBTQ—people, students took it, they told me, you know, the first day of school, I often ask like, what, what's, what's your motivation? And most students would say something like, oh, I just wanna learn about LGBTQ history, or something like that. And maybe, maybe I would have one or two students who would name some kind of connection. Uh, and then by the end of the semester, especially the first two years, it was always like something intense. Like I would find out that more than 50% of the students had like, intimate family members living with or had recently died with HIV. Like, it was always like, everyone came in with this very like—

[25:20]

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Removed, distant relationship to it. And then the truth would come out once trust was built. Um, in terms of prior knowledge, even if they had HIV in their family, it didn't mean that they knew anything about the virus. In fact, they sometimes had more and better questions than the students who really were just there for thinking that they're getting a survey of LGBT, Late 20th century stuff. Um, so I just always started HIV 101.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Uh, 'cause there's no harm in that. Um, it's good for me.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Uh, and it's good for the students. And so, um, during lockdown, I got a small grant, uh, and we made a publication called HIV 101 TNS, and it's like HIV 101 basics that we've, uh—and it's, the people who made it are all people either impacted by HIV, um, at The New School or living with HIV at The New School. And so a lot of the people involved are unnamed, they're anonymous. Um, but we, uh, yeah, we just made a, uh—and, and embedded throughout the 101 stuff is specific information, like this one person whose mom, uh, was living with HIV and what it meant to balance that.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Uh, another person who, uh, found out that they were undetectable while a student at The New School. So they were living thinking that, they had outdated stigma [laughs] about their HIV status, and then they had updated knowledge.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Um, yeah. And so that was a really meaning—that's a, that's been a good way to start this semester and to ground it here. Um, and then the story that I often tell, and I'm not sure if it's part of your research so far, is like, uh, Kia LaBeija, who to me is like one of the most important artists right now. She went to The New School, she was born with HIV. And, um, one of the important stories that I think she tells, and she was in Ricardo's classes too. Um, and one of the important stories that she tells is like, she would often, you know, miss her morning classes and people would just assume it was because she was out partying because she is, uh, she was a legend in the house and ball scene, and people just assume that she was out late and she let that myth ride. But in truth, she was dealing with, um, uh, the impacts of her medication the morning. She just, it was really hard for her to get up and get out of bed.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, and it took her, it took her longer than she wanted to graduate, in part because of her illness. And I just think that's an important story to tell in the 21st century.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Was this HIV 101 TNS, was this a digital publication or did it come out—

KERR: Yeah—

WALDEN: In printed form?

KERR: It is digital. I did work with two students who don't have any relationship to h Hi or no intense relationship to HIV, um, to design something that we thought we could print it. It didn't work out. We're gonna, I'm gonna redesign it.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Okay.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: And no, I think that's great. I thought like, what a cool resource that I didn't know existed.

KERR: Yeah. The reason, what they did so successfully in their design was they made it really Instagram- and post- friendly. And so they're the right size for—

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: For stories and posting.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Uh, and that's really meaningful. Um, but what I realized is the zine format, like a physical zine format, was actually much more powerful because what students, I would print it and it would look ugly, but students would leave it in their dorm room or they would leave it in common areas. And that was actually much more, um, I don't know, it engendered more movement than it did online.

WALDEN: Yeah. I'm sure.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, I kind of want to switch pace. Yeah. Um, I just need to find this quote. Of course, it's gonna take me a while. Um, there's this one quote where you're kind of talking about—yes. Okay.

KERR: That was so fast.

WALDEN: [laughs] Um, yeah. I, and like, I think I struggle with, um, well, I think, you know, first of all, like the book is so special because it's a conversation, um, that as much as, uh, no, it's two sided, it's completely equal. Um, and it's so instructive just to see it play out and to be able to absorb it, uh, kind of very slowly. Um, and, uh, I'm jealous of just like, like the time and space that you two have shared to have these conversations. Um, and it just gives me the chance to kind of like, reflect about where I am and how I'm coming to this, you know, really so recently.

[30:00]
KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, and have a lot further to go. Um, so I've actually, I think before I go into that quote, um, is how did you, uh, you talked a bit about it a little bit, um, in the book, how you kind of came, um, you and Alex met. I think you found our artwork or her videos online maybe?

KERR: Yeah. I found her videos in some of her academic texts.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then how, like how did you go from that to like this book?

KERR: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. That's a great question. Uh, I mean, silence is really powerful. And when you can crack through silence and make connection, it really bonds you. Right? Um, maybe you're finding that in this experience. And HIV is something that, um, in the book, Alex and I, I don't know if it made it in the end, but we like debate what God is. And for Alex video is God, and I said, God is God. Um, but sometimes we also meet and understand that HIV is God, um, in the way it can bring people together and, and help you understand the world for good, bad, and otherwise. But, uh, quite simply, well, just also, I wanna say she's a remarkable human being and she's just so generous with her time. And she's compulsive. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way. She's compulsive in her ability, desire and need to think with others.

KERR: Uh, especially in the present. Um, and she holds all of her knowledge, you know, that's maybe too lofty. She's able to retain her curiosities over time.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: And is willing to change her mind and think and think with others. And so, when I was at official AIDS and I was kind of trying to make sense of all this AIDS crisis revisitation culture, I was so confused. How did we go from almost no cultural, uh, production around HIV in any quote-unquote meaningful way to a, so much stuff, but it was all backwards-looking?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And I was doing research online. I came across something that she'd written a few years earlier, uh, in an academic journal and her phrase, "queer archive activism," and deeply rooted in her film called "Video Remains," which, um, if you haven't seen it, I can send you a link.

It's so beautiful and it's an hour-long, um, tribute is not the fullest word, but it's an hour long, uh, documentary in honor of her friend Jim Lamb. And he had asked her to record him. He was knowing he was dying, but he wasn't aware of how sick he was and how close he was to death. And then Alex held onto that tape for 10 years. And that, that is how she understood when I started talking about the second silence, that's how she understood what I was talking about was real. 'Cause she had experienced it herself. So anyway, I reached out, uh, I did a two-part—and, uh, we did an, we did, um, an email interview. And it was just so rich and I benefited so much from it that I, uh, broke it up into two different parts for the Visual AIDS blog.

KERR: It got a lot of traction. And, um, she was so excited to be in community with someone who was younger than her. It's so funny. If you go back to 2013, we are obviously of different generations. I was, uh, 10 years younger than I am, but just the way sexism and ageism works. Like she looked, to the culture she was an old lady, and I was a youngish man. And now we're both kind of old ladies, um, [laughs] which is kind of amazing. And she, um, it was exciting for her to be invited to talk about this stuff again. And then "Dallas Buyer's Club" came out and she was invited to write about it for a film magazine. And she is really good at doing cross generational work. And she said, I'll do it if I can do it as a conversation with Ted. And I had written at a Tumblr post called like, oh, what was it? Like "17 Things About 'Dallas Buyers Club,'" and it was just like, um, a critique.

WALDEN: Oh, my God.

KERR: Yeah. And it was like, by that point, I had met enough long-term survivors in New York City to understand that representation, even when it offended my liberal arts education sensibilities, could be healing, could be powerful, could be meaningful. And so I went into it with that. But through, through the list, I was able to understand it as like a libertarian dream using AIDS. Like, it's this idea of like, we don't need the government. People can, you know, like they took this beautiful idea of the buyer's club and turned it into like a libertarian model.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And as a Canadian, I find it offensive. And I just think actually government can work for us. We just have to make sure that we're holding the government accountable. And there isn't a big chasm between the government and the people.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[34:59]

KERR: Um, and she really liked it. And so we did this really long kind of crazy article. It starts with us like talking about Jennifer Garner's lips and Matthew McConaughey's butt, and it just kind of goes from there. And that is like all the seeds of what became this book are in this. And then we just really enjoyed—and then, um, we just became conversation partners. And every time there was something AIDS-related that came up—and there wasn't, it was still wasn't that much. So we would literally, like, I remember standing on like, um, Eighth Ave and 22nd Street talking about, um, when Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" came out on HBO. And I remember just talking to her about it and trying to figure it out. And we just kept on doing that. Then we got into this dumb little conference that I thought it was a big deal 'cause I didn't understand anything at the time. And that was the first time we met, um, on a train, uh, to some beautiful beach place in 20', in, I guess that was 2014. Uh, and then we'd had enough conversations that we were like, oh, we should put them in a book. And we had a few publishers that were interested. Uh, the early readers were, um, very cruel, um, but in helpful ways. And, uh, you know, seven years later the book came up.

WALDEN: And were these, I was also just curious, like what were the logistics of this happening? Is it phone calls? Is it Zoom? Is it like emails? Is it everything?

KERR: Yeah. So at one point she moved, um, to New York and we ended up living, uh, down the street from each other. Um, and our process, and I should say this is my bad, that this is not in the book. So we did have a whole paragraph on our process. And during that editing, the last editing phase, I like cut it out. So that's my bad. Um, what happened was we would have a conversation. We went on a series of retreats. Those were the best for us. So my friend Justin had a cabin. We went to his cabin. Um, we did, uh, we went to like some weird, like, cabin in Pennsylvania. And what we would do is we would just talk. We'd be like, okay, this is what we wanna talk about. We would talk for like three hours, and then I would go and write a draft of our conversation.

KERR: So I would write my part, and then I would write what I understood would be her part, or what I thought she would say.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And then go back and forth. And then I would send it to her and she would rewrite herself and make notes and send it back to me. I would have to rewrite my stuff based on what she had rewritten, and then we would just massage it until we'd gotten 13 nice conversations. So one thing I think is misunderstood about the book is people might think it's just transcripts from conversations, but it's not, it's actually like, deeply written and edited.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: Uh, and it's so different than how it started.

WALDEN: Yeah. I kinda had to like remind myself like, you know, this isn't, you know, I mean, I'm kind of beating myself up for like, wow, I would never be able to speak like this. But— [laughs]

KERR: [laughs] The most real though, is the big fight we have at the beginning of silence.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, so writing about silence is really hard. And I was it silence and AIDS is the most important relationship to non-humans that I have. And, and so I just was not happy with anything we had done. And I went into like a fugue state and I rewrote a whole chapter. And then when she rightfully asked me about it, I denied it, 'cause I really didn't think I did. And we had a blow up fight. And that fight is, is represented on the page. And, um, you can tell it's the most real because there's actual pauses. 'Cause like—

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

KERR: Yeah. I mean, also Alex is one of the best processors you'll ever meet, and I'm an okay processor and she made me a better processor.

WALDEN: Yeah. No, I could really, I, I remember the first time we met, I remember you kind of repeating back to me things I was saying—

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, which was so helpful. And then I noticed you two doing that together.

KERR: Oh, really?

WALDEN: Um, in the discourse. So, I mean, it's a beautiful collaboration.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: And it's a pleasure to read for that reason, uh, amongst others. Um, yeah, I just, I, um, the cross-generational work was so fascinating. And then just like selfishly, I didn't realize you had done this, but the Lana Del Re, Lana Del AIDS was like, as a Lana head, like, I was like, oh, my God—

KERR: Amazing.

WALDEN: Like, I didn't, I knew this was, I was like, I, I was already like, invested, but now I'm even like further. So, um, no, I just, I like, I loved the work and I loved like the parsing of it too. Um, so it was exciting to see. Um, yeah. So the quote I wanted to read, um, back to you. This is from your part, I believe. Um, and this is where you're going into, you know, I believe this is the silence section. Um, uh, and you're talking about, uh, interest in the past. Um, and you said, "I understand that I need AIDS history to do AIDS work, and I'm grateful for it. Uh, what I would say, and I hope we will talk about this more later, is that I don't feel displaced in time. I'm not a gay man who wishes he could have sex in the 1970s. I'm not an AIDS activist who wishes he could have been with you and others at ACT UP meetings in 1987. I'm not a feminist to yearns for some sort of more ideal and radical past. All three of these refrains being something we hear often in our community. Rather, part of what coming of age and second silence did for me was to make me grateful for the times I walk in, interested in the times from before, and excited about building with others, uh, times to come." Um, and, you know, the, we've, so I kind of came into this line of questioning, uh, last spring. I think I told you this, when we first met, I was taking this, um, design studio on the non-heteronormative city. And then we were also doing the Stonewall class. And, um, you know, we kept skirting around the idea of AIDS and like how to treat it, um, in terms of our work and our discussions. And it was often very, um, uh, dissatisfying. And so that's when I saw the opportunity to like, give it the time in the space, hopefully, um, to just see what happens and to what comes out of it and what else I could learn for myself, but also my classmates who I think would be just as interested in knowing. Um, and at the same time, I've really struggled with, well, I don't know, like what my stakes are in this. Like, what's I've like, uh, for better for worse, it's a little abstract, you know, like, I stumbled into this in my master's program and, um, it doesn't impact my health as far as I'm aware. And, um, I think I felt guilty and to know, yeah. I, and I think maybe you spoke to this earlier, like you being the only person in the room in certain scenarios speaking to this. Um, uh, so yeah, I, I think just reading this and kind of seeing it spun in a different way, um, was really exciting for me to see.

[41:58]

WALDEN: And I think I, it gives me, I feel like I, I feel relief in just seeing that okay, there are other ways to come at this, and those are also valid. Um, you know, we talked to, Sarah Schulman came to a class this spring, which was so incredible.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Um, and, um, and so we have all, you know, we meet all these experts in these models of the work, um, who have so much to share to this day. Um, but it's not like, these aren't necessarily who I'm trying to, I'm not trying to mimic them. Um, so I'm still, it's not to say that I have any fewer questions, but I feel relief in just the conversation that you and Alex had here and to kind of hear how you've come to this work, um, is really, um, refreshing. I don't know if you have, I mean, it seems like from a young age, you're pretty clear about how you related to your, how you fit into this lineage or timeline maybe. And maybe that's not the case.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: But I guess I'm curious to know more about how that might have changed over time, or if it became clear over time.

KERR: Yeah. I would love to ask you a question if you don't want to answer it. You don't have to. Um, but can you say more about what you mean by like, you were, I can't remember the words you used. I wish I, you were learning about the stuff that you guys were circumnavigating, HIV and it made you feel, I think you said uncomfortable in your body.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And can you say more about that?

WALDEN: Yeah. Well, uh, so this was in Brian McGrath's studio primarily where we were really kind of getting into the weeds. And so he, um, you know, kind of came to the city in the early 80s and, um, you know, he's a gay man. And so, uh, as we were researching non-heteronormative kind of modes of being and occupying in the city, he was bringing in, uh, his colleagues, his friends, experts in their own fields, um, to talk about this broad question. And what kept coming up, um, would be the topic of AIDS and like mass loss. And—

KERR: How did it come up? 'Cause this wasn't the, this wasn't the Stonewall class. This was like a studio class.

KERR: Yes, yes. Um, and I can talk about that too, after. Um, so, you know, for example, um, uh, Ricardo Montez was there talking about his work. And we, that was one of the hardest conversations because none of us had kind of the, like, the how do you even broach? Like, we don't have the tools to like broach, uh, to, um, bring up the topic.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And to kind of go there.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Even if people are kind of willing and ready to go there. Um, it's just, it's hard. That's hard. It's hard to go toe to toe. Um, or at least that was my experience. And I think that was my classmates' experience as well. So that was one instance. You know, it would come up when, um, you know, we interviewed Brian, our professor, and, you know, he brought it up, but we didn't really push him for more details. And it was always like this, gosh, like, we wanna ask more, should we ask more? Um, and so it was great to see reading the book. I think at one point Alex was saying like, you have to ask, like, it's, uh, critical. Um, if only we had read that, uh, you know, two years ago. Um, so it kept coming up in these conversations in different spaces with different people from different backgrounds. Um, and so, you know, I would talk about it with a few classmates in between these sessions and just be like, gosh, like, this is really hard, but we just keep not talking about it in a, what feels like a compelling or instructive way. And then it was when in the Stonewall class, um, we were, you know, we spent most of the semester just like, what are we gonna do? Um, and so when it was brought up, well, you know, the class in general is interested in activism.

[45:54]

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And reinvigorating activism, um, kinda sensibilities, uh, amongst younger people today. And so I said, well, we should probably talk about AIDS and AIDS activism. And the reaction was just like, well, there's no room. We don't really have time. Um, why would we kind of bring down the tone of like, this thing which are maybe like valid if not like, um, you know, they, there's, people are coming from those, but like, maybe their own kind of prejudices or biases. Um, no one I don't think had meant any wrong, but it's just, you know, that's how we know how to respond. So that's the moment where I was like, oh my God. Like, we really don't know how to talk about this. And like, we, at the same time, the, we're at this cro, like this nexus of the city, were two blocks from the AIDS memorial.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And like, you know, we can only imagine the amount of people impacted in this community. Um, and, uh, I'm like, you do have another quote that's just like that. Um, I do want to make sure I find it here. You know, it's as you're kind of coming into your young adulthood, you're, you have this sense of we're, you're coming into this place that has been built by and defined by AIDS.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And yet it's, no one can really point to it or speak to it. Um, so yeah, I think I was just also kind of coming into the same realization, like this neighborhood and I, and this is where Sarah Schulman comes in. That was the kind of the first big work I read in this vein, uh, was just, its gentrification of the mind. And to think that, oh, wow, you know, a whole population died, which caused a lot of turnover of property, which of course, um, pushed along an already in-process, um, phenomenon in the city that just brought us even close to where we are now. Um, which is like an unaffordable city, a city where it's really hard to be creative, um, or to just be a human. Um, so it seems like we all kind of bitch about the city and kind of what it takes to be successful here, but we're not really talking about a big thing that kind of made it this way. Um, so I think I've been really interested in that idea of gentrification. Um, and then of course, you speak to it in the book, it's like, when we talk about AIDS, we talk about all these intersecting crises.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: So I think it's like, it's a great way to point to the, just how we kind of got here. Um, and, um, yeah, I think, so that's all like the, the kind of, um, conceptual kind of work that I've gone through. But then, yeah, there's like this personal thing that's in the background that I haven't really known how to deal with, um, which I think is like, at least I know that there's space to kind of work on that over time and to, you know, not put so much pressure on it.

KERR: Yeah. I mean, I love what you're saying because it, it seems like you really benefited from your course selection in the sense that you had an opportunity to think of structure, spirit, activism, your real life experience, but also the systems that you were born into. And that's like, I mean, put that on a poster for The New School. Um, that's a really, that's a real gift. And then you were smart enough to, or wise enough, or compelled enough to make those connections. Like you're, instead of just looking at the strings, you may be, for better or for worse, braided them together and you'll know in five to 10 years, if that was a good idea. [laughs] Um, but, uh, and it is a good idea. Um, there's a few things I'm compelled to say. One is, um, it makes me think a lot about the limits, possibilities, but mainly the limits of memorials, right?

[49:46]

KERR: Like you so eloquently said, you know, we're just a few blocks away from the AIDS memorial and yet, and yet all that expenditure, all that space, all that power, uh, did not give us, does not give us—except for through the amazing programming that Dave [Harper] often does—um, does not give us the capacity to do these things. Like, right. Like in theory, for me, a good memorial gives us the tools so that we can have these conversations. And so in a way, the gumption or the bravery or the can't-notness that you and maybe other students felt like, that's the memorial for me. Like, um, I'm thinking a lot about the difference between history and memory. And it comes from the French philosopher Pierre Nora. And history is like, the things that are in books that are passed down through the academy are passed down through that kind of knowledge, uh, uh, gifting or giving, and then memory is like what, you know, from living in life with other people. Right? 

And most of us, especially when it comes to HIV/AIDS want AIDS memory, we AIDS history is what is in the documentaries that don't speak to us. AIDS memory is what happened when you were listening to Sarah Schulman and Sarah Schulman said something to you that you're like, wow, now I understand myself, my space and the world better. And, um, that's the best memorial to me. And those, those AIDS history monuments can be a vehicle for AIDS memory, but they so often aren't. Right? And so that is the power of a school. That is the power of an exhibition. That's the power of an oral history. Uh, so this, the first thing I wanted to say. The second thing, it's so funny. So I was Ricardo's student, and I know that, um, silence, that powerful, chilly, cruel silence that he can make possible. Um, and I, I'll speak for myself. I remember how hard I worked to animate or, or, uh, break through that. So just mirroring—

WALDEN: [laughs]

KERR: Just telling you that you had that experience. And yet the irony is that his book about Keith Haring is all about lines, right? And so he's actually giving you, or giving us, or giving readers a fundamental tool to talk about HIV with, which is like the lines, the lines of transmission, the lines of architecture, the lines of budget lines, right? Like he does such a poetic, beautiful, grounded job. And so maybe one way I say thank you to Ricardo is just to bring that up, that he, he does give us the tools, even if he doesn't always access them, [laughs] or he wants better for us to meet him more halfway.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And then I guess to kind of parallel some of your experiences, I remember, so I was on 12th Street, which is aca, uh, which is a literary journal here. And I interviewed Sarah Schulman for one issue. And I remember thinking for another issue, I was going to interview AA and it never happened, but I ended up doing an oral history for the Smithsonian for AA. And he told me, this story, actually starts off the oral history. And, um, he tells this story about, uh, when he lived on 12th Street, so, you know, new, like across the street from The New School, and it was in the 80s. And, uh, it was right before he found out that the other two members of General Idea were living with HIV. And every day they would pass this one person who was asking for money on the street and had a sign that says, like, said something about his HIV status and being homeless. And his AA, his mother came to visit him and she started to cry.

And she said, it's just like the war. 

And having that mirrored to AA helped him see that actually he was living in a time of mass death and he hadn't been able to fully see it until then. And I just remember every time I teach, uh, I sometimes teach on 11th or 12th Street and I'll look out the window and like, it's kind of like a cheesy movie. Like I will see the ghost of that person with HIV in the sign, and I will be like, and that, and the thing is, that person existed in the 1980s. He existed in the 1990s. She existed in the 2000s. She, they exist in the 2010s. Right? Like in the 2020s. And so I think that's also what's important about your project is that you're creating an opportunity for us to talk about 40 decades of these intersections.

But also like, when an institution takes up so much cultural and physical space, there, there is an opportunity, and I would say a responsibility to think about what have they witnessed and what have they experienced. And then the thing that you're doing that's really exciting is like you're talking to individuals and I don't know what other people are sharing, but like, as, as you're asking questions, I'm like, oh my God. I remember the first time I thought about, uh, PTSD in relationship to HIV I was on, I was in like some library on 12th Street and an Occupy March came by and I joined the Occupy March. And I understood activism better because I was just thinking about ACT UP. And now I'm in Occupy and I have to write about this for a class. You know what I mean? And just kind of like school is one important thread for some people.

[55:16]

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, yeah. I don't know if that was helpful, but just wanted, yeah. Thank you.

WALDEN: Yeah. No, thank you.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Do you wanna take a little break?

KERR [55:23]:

Sure.

[break; audio file one ends, begin file two]

WALDEN [00:00]:

So we'll start recording again. Um, okay. So brief pause. Um, yeah, I think I wanna ask you about, um, well, the last part of your book, or towards the end, you talked about the exhibition you put together, um, as part of a group at The Center using their archive. And yeah, maybe you, you can talk about that experience a little bit. Um, you've obviously, you're talking about your work with Visual AIDS and, um, you know, the, uh, Chloe Dzubilo—

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, you know, working really closely with archives and bringing to the surface, uh, aspects of those archives that might be surprising or challenge, um, like the dominant discourse around AIDS. And, you know, you had a really robust team to do exactly that in this, uh, project with, but, um, yeah, I'm curious to know how, like, I mean, selfishly I'm really interested to know like what this process looks like and kind of maybe, um, any struggles that came up, whether it was, um, within this project or previous, uh, relationships with archives. So I don't know how you wanna—

KERR: Great question.

WALDEN: Tackle that.

KERR: Yeah. Um, I mean, I think it's actually kind of an interesting thing to talk about because the exhibition, you're talking about "Metanoia"—

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Uh, “Transformation Through AIDS Archives and Activism," um, has, its like pre-history in The New School in so much as, um, that collective, which started in 2015, 2016. Um, we held all of our first meetings in the lobby of the health center, uh, The New School health center, uh, where Tamara was working at the time. Uh, and she was a founding member. And, um, we spent the first year figuring out what we were and what we weren't and who we were to each other. Uh, so a real, so anything that we've done afterwards is a result of having a pretty strong foundation.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Of communication and of ability to deal with conflict, ability to, um, know that we don't all have to agree, uh, a process. There we go. And so it took us a long time to understand that we didn't have to have a name. Our question was, our name took us a long time, understand that a doula is someone who holds space during times of transition. And that, um, that was our main goal, was to hold space for ourselves, each other, and the culture. Um, and over the years we'd hosted, we've done lots of stuff at The New School, including, um, a writing workshop, uh, with Timothy DuWhite, and iele [Paloumpis]last name, or I can never say it. Um, but then to fast forward a bit to the exhibition, um, so Alex Juhasz was invited to do an exhibition about AIDS in New York, kind of counter program to a AIDS in LA thing that The One institute thought that they wanted to do. And then Alex, as is her way, um, said, I don't want to do it alone. I want to do it with other people. Can I do it with the doulas? And she was already kind of a member by then, but this kind of locked her in. And, um, another founding member, um, and someone who kind of comes and goes, is Kat Cheairs, Katherine. And she's, uh, so Alex is a white lady from Denver, Colorado. I'm a white gay guy from Edmonton, Alberta, Kat is a black woman from Atlanta who, before coming to New York had made a documentary about AIDS and black families. And, uh, and then we brought on Jawanza Williams, who's, uh, activist with VOCAL[-NY], the kind of the best AIDS activist group around. And, uh, he's a young black man from Texas living with HIV. He came to New York to really blossom into what that meant. And so the four of us, um, got together. We knew we wanted to make an exhibition.

And because of kind of the reverberations of the AIDS crisis re, uh, revisitation, we knew that it wasn't going to be, we knew it had to mirror the things that we cared about and the people we cared about. So, uh, we rooted it in Black women's experiences. And then very quickly that became rooted in, uh, Black women in prison, uh, and their experiences. And that came from Kat thinking about how do we find Black women's stories with HIV in the archive? And she just had an idea that prison would be the way to go. And so, um, we followed her instinct and it led us to, um, Joann Walker. Um, and opened up this, uh, Joann's, Joann was in her life, was in, was archived through Judy Greenspan's papers because Judy and Joann wrote letters back and forth. Joann was in prison, Judy was an ACT UP activist on the outside.

[05:22]

KERR: Um, and then that opened it up to thinking about other, uh, Black women and women of color living with HIV and the role that Freedom, Jail and HIV played in their lives. Um, the best aspect of that whole experience, we did an exhibition on the walls of the LGBT Center here in New York, and then in a gallery in LA just before lockdown began. And we had a lot of funding. We had like, not a, like, we didn't have like, MoMA money, but for all of us, like we had a budget. I mean, this is something you can empathize with, with like, you know, so much of what Alex has done, I've done what Kat and Jawanza had historically done, had been for little to no money, or you do it for like, whatever money you have at the time. And then this was an opportunity to do something with funding.

So that meant paying other people. Um, and so that was a good thing. The other good thing was that there was four of us, and so we couldn't take anything for granted. By that time, Alex and I could speak in shorthand, could read each other's minds, and it was good that we were with people who couldn't read our minds and we couldn't read their minds. So we had to literally talk about everything. And there's lots of tension, lots of tension. Uh, I usually don't, uh, cry or get mad in group settings. I'm like a Canadian Capricorn. And, uh, I cried on many Zoom calls. Uh, I got angry. And, um, and so we had to institute a rule where like, no emails, we only, we had to process everything in person, like over the phone or in person. So that was really good. And, um, we had to just make space for when people could show up and not show up.

There was various times where some people just couldn't be present for whatever reason. Uh, and so that was okay. Um, I don't know what else is helpful to know about that experience. We knew that the archives, that the primary sources were the objects. We didn't need to do anything but make them easier to see, bigger to see. Uh, so we just really, you know, Kat will speak about it in more poetic terms. She, and Alex would, too, probably. Like they are works of art. They're beautiful. All we have to do is—but for me it was more practical. It's like, we, we don't wanna analyze these things. We just want to present them. So let's make them as big as possible, um, or just duplicate them. So rather than having to hunch over a vitrine, you can see it on a wall and read it.

Um, and so that was meaningful. The other thing that was really important is, you know, The Center, for all that the Center does, the number one thing, the, the number one thing that brings people to the center is they're in meetings for resources that they need. Maybe they're there for AA or for CMA, or maybe they're there for the toilets or maybe they're there, um, to cruise. And so we knew that, no, we knew that most people weren't gonna look at the exhibition like they would at MoMA or something like that. So we just wanted people to, wherever they were, they could find something that could be meaningful for them. And so many people at The Center are, uh, connected through HIV and yet probably a lot of them would be embedded in the bias of HIV being a gay white man's story.

So why don't we start there and say, actually, what happens when you center black women? And, and we thought that was helpful. The wall that I think was the most beautiful was a wall of portraits that we commissioned of Black women and women of color who do AIDS activism now. And so we had lots of historic stuff from the archives on the wall, but we also thought it was important that we, because of Alex's politics, my politics, Jawanza's literal in embodied politics, and Kat's politics, we knew that we, the show couldn't be about the past only. So we wanted to show that the work of Katrina Haslip, uh, and Joann Walker was alive and well. And so that was what that wall was. And, um, one of those women, Rusti Miller-Hill, uh, is no longer with us. And so, um, it's kind of intense to think about the ways in which, like, um, you are making history. We are always making history. You, you are recording this audio history to be making history, and it's just, it's much more, uh, overwhelming when someone dies.

WALDEN: Yeah. Is there, speaking of, well, is there a digital afterlife to this installation?

KERR: Yeah. So—

WALDEN: Or maybe it's still up.

KERR: Sorry?

WALDEN: Is it still up or—

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah.

[09:58]

KERR: The one, so we did a, we did a catalog, but we, we didn't do that many. I think there's like, I think we printed 200 and I know where one is.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: So, um, uh, but one institute, um, under Jennifer [Gregg] and Umi [Hsu] were really amazing. And Umi worked with Kat to make an online exhibition. And I think it's, I think it's like, I don't know the website, but it's like metanoia, something. Anyway, it is online and it's really, it's not a duplicate 'cause you can't duplicate an in-person exhibition online, but it has all the information and it has some extras like, um, interviews with, um, Judy Greenspan—

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And this, uh, woman named, uh, another Judy. Um, both of—Judy Greenspan, her archives were here in New York, and then Judy in California had the ACT UP LA Archives, and that's where we got a lot of the stuff.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm. So that, you said that was right before pandemic and lockdown?

KERR: Yeah. So, um, uh, we got to go to the opening in LA and then lockdown happened. And so the exhibition was like on the walls, I think, up until that summer. But of course, nobody could go in.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, so that was kind of amazing.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. What was it like to be so intensely—I mean, did things change or not change as far as like your ability to like, focus—

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: In this way on, um, for example, this one project or this one aspect of your work? Um, like was there a change or how did that—

KERR: 'Cause of Covid or lockdowns?

WALDEN: Yeah. How did that impact, like your work and your collaboration and just, I mean, I think accessing these stories and so forth?

KERR: Yeah. No, it was huge in terms of what the, of what the collective became. So one thing that I'm really trying to think through in the present day, so that's to say June 2024 is like how misaligned, and this is me speaking in 2024, so I could disagree with myself in the future, but how misaligned AIDS activism is and Covid activism is like, I remember early Covid my, it wasn't even, I didn't even know what to call it at the time. I think I was calling it like Coronavirus, and it was, I just remember thinking, we have to bring people together. And I worked with somebody at Performance Space and we were like, we have to bring people together and we were going to do an event in a space together. And then of course, that's exactly the wrong thing we should have done at that time.

And so we, we very quickly moved to Zoom, and I say that to say our collective what, What Would an HIV Doula Do?, Went from like roughly 15 people in New York with lots of like, people who cared or followed our work in other cities, to over 60 people around Canada, US, and Mexico because of lockdowns. Because what, what we, and what I started to do was, um, use Zoom to create the meeting space of the gathering space that we had been having here at The New School. And, um, some of that energy we also channeled into making a series of zines for the exhibition for The One Institute. So the first exhibition, or the first zine was called What Would a Covid-19 Doula Do?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And we, uh, brought in some of the archives that were in the exhibition, but then I asked all the members of What Would an HIV Doula Do? who wanted to, to submit what they, were like to answer that question as someone living through Covid-19, with your experience in HIV, what are you doing?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: So Tamara, for example, submitted photos and she said, every day before, you know, early when no, she knows no one's out, she's gonna go for a walk and take photos. So she documented that process. Brian, who was still, uh, in jail at the time, wasn't in prison, he was in jail, talked about like the high cost of, uh, phone and internet stuff while at Rikers.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, I can't remember what I wrote about, but, uh, yeah. Just lots of people contributed to that. And then we'd host online gatherings about that. So it totally changed how we worked. And fast forward to 2024, there's real tension is, there's a real unease, a dis-ease, a powerful unknowing about how, how, how do we live in a world with long Covid? How do we live in a world with Covid? Um, and, and a lot of it is like, what do public events look like? What does gathering look like?

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Like, you know, you and I, you and I are sitting in a little room, we're not masking.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: We wouldn't have done this four years ago.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

KERR: Right. Um, and do we feel bad? Should we feel bad? What's the politics of this? Will we one day look at this and be like, we were so reckless.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

KERR: And then the, to bring this back to HIV, it, there's so much cultural inclination to compare the two.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: And actually there's just like, it's not the same.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And I, again, I could be wrong about this.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

[14:57]

KERR: But so much about AIDS activism was pushing through fear, judgment and policing each other in ourselves. So lots of people early in the pandemic tried to equate condom use and mask use. And it was like, it just doesn't work. Because actually as AIDS activists, we made a vow not to police each other. And we understood that if people were on treatment, that even before U=U, if people were on treatment, they didn't transmit the virus. And, and some people we knew were choosing without judgment, choosing life over fear.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

KERR: And that doesn't work with some of the hard-line Covid policy.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: People or the Covid activists who are like, actually it's not personal choice. It's actually, if we all wore masks—

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: More people could participate more robustly in life.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, so I think a lot about that. And that was a lot of the collectives work too. We, um, so not famously 'cause it's, let's calm down, but like, early in our time together, we created a thing called "Twenty-One Questions to Consider When Embarking on AIDSRelated Cultural Production," or something like this. And then in the pandemic, early in the pandemic, we did “Twenty-Seven Questions For Writers & Journalists to Consider When Writing About COVID-19 and HIV / AIDS. Um, so we were quite robust on, but also it was hard not to, I wrote an essay for Poz Magazine about like, um, you know, just, uh, it was hard not to think about the two viruses at the same time, and yet they're so different.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate just the kind of careful distinction. I feel like it's come up in conversations. I've never really known how to respond to it. Um, and I guess I'm still thinking myself as well. So, um, yeah, certainly will continue to consider that. Um, yeah. I know you've talked about, um, What Would an HIV Doula Do? Um, so that came about in 2015 mm-hmm. . And, um, I guess can you speak more about, um, like your collaboration with Tamara and, um, how that's maybe changed over time and kind of what the—yeah, I think it is funny that, um, you know, I, I've been looking for kind of a, a, like a, just like, how is this, how is HIV/AIDS, um, discussed or kind of treated in conversation at the school? And I didn't know about that until I came across your work. So I'm curious to just hear more about, um, how that's come up in your work and what that work is like.

KERR: Yeah. And it kind of brings us to a full circle in terms of design. Um, because, so in 2014, I, um, Carlos Motta has this amazing project called "We Who Feel Differently," and he invited me to edit a journal, uh, issue. And so I edited, I, I curated five pieces and edited it together. And, uh, it was called like, um, "Time is Not A Line: Conversations, Essays, and Images about HIV/AIDS Now," or something like this. And my friend, and now doula, member Pato Herbert, who teaches at NYU, uh, was moved by it and he had some access to funding. So he said, here's some money. Why don't you do a one day symposium, uh, based on the journal. So I did that and the first, and we asked three questions over the course of the day. The first question was, um, or the first prompt was like, um, what is medicine?

We had a very robust understanding of medicine. The last was around HIV criminalization and the state largely driven by, uh, Timothy DuWhite's work. And then in the middle was this question that I kind of cultivated while I was at seminary. And it was like, what would an HIV doula do? I'd heard the term doula only in relationship to birth work, and then I'd heard about it in terms of abortion and then death. And, um, I just remember thinking like, oh, what would a doula for HIV do? And I was like, oh, when we have this day long thing, I'll ask that question in the middle. And I hosted it at a Housing Works location, like on like First Ave or Second Ave—no Avenue D sorry, avenue D very far. And I knew that not many people would come unless I like, invited them and told them why they should come.

And so I, it was like a big table. And I invited people who did recovery work, people who did archival work. Um, so I invited Tamara because of all the work that she does here, but also I knew that she had done, she'd been at, um, AIDS organizations before and I really just, just saw her as a community builder and someone who took harm reduction more seriously than anyone else I knew. Um, I invited, um, HIV testers. Uh, I invited anybody and everybody that I could kind of imagine would be at that table. In the end, there was probably about 15 of us, and we had a really robust conversation. And it was one of those conversation—and it's recorded, and you can read the transcript on our website. Um, oh, and I invited a midwife who's also a doula who had also historically worked in HIV, and it was such a meaningful gathering that by the end of the, our time together, we realized that we wanted to keep hanging out. So we just kind of kept on hanging out, but not in a robust way. And then Drew Tucker, who was in a design program here at The New School, invited me. He, like, I, there was a bunch of design students who lived, um, just off Fulton Street in Brooklyn. And I had met Drew through that house and he said, I have a bit of money. I want to invite you to talk about something, but it has to be design related. And I, and it has to have a question like, what's your design question? And I was like, I don't say no to money. I don't say no to opportunities. So I was like, and I told Drew about the doulas, and I was like, our name is a question.

[20:51]

And he was like, perfect, wonderful. And, um, so I emailed everybody who had been at that one day session who was still deciding to keep in contact with each other. And we did a panel, um, it was like in this building in the basement in one of those like, nice weird rooms where you forget about time.

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: And something hap—so we did our little presentation, um, an AIDS publication was there and wrote about it. But something really powerful happened during the Q&A. There was maybe like, you know, 10 people in the audience, but they all had stories. They all resonated with the question of what would an HIV doula do? And they all had experience across time. So there was like, I remember there was like this young person from Bushwick who was like talking about taking care of their roommate who had just recently been diagnosed.

And then there was like this elder radical fairy who talked about like, their lover in Germany 20 years ago. And you could see it in real time happening. The panel turned into a circle. And then we just started meeting monthly. Um, and so, uh, if it, it's kind of interesting to think about, like, I think if you're a New School student who thinks, oh, design, you understand that design is this big open word, but from the outside it seemed like such a weird fit as like, we're gonna have a bunch of like architect students who are mad at us and are gonna be like, oh, why aren't you talking about what an AIDS clinic needs to look like? [laughs].

WALDEN: Mm-hmm.

KERR: Um, but instead it was actually way more robust and humane than that.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah. Um, this is a bit of a switch, but I want to know what it, you're traveling this summer, and so does your work look different when you're out of the city? Um, I mean, I know it's work you're doing in Edmonton, it's obviously work you're doing here. It's obviously work you do across the country, but I'm just curious to know how you experience it differently, perhaps? If there's a difference?

KERR: Yeah. I mean, New York, yeah. I mean the, the, so the, the city I spend the most time in other than New York is St. Louis. And I work in St. Louis a lot because that's where, um, Robert Rayford, a 16-year-old teenager, died in 1969 with HIV, a fact confirmed in 1987 when tissues from his, saved from his autopsy were tested. And, um, the work there is very different. Uh, I don't know how to explain it. HIV in New York, I kind of feel like you could go up to anybody, almost anybody in New York, and you could talk about HIV, you could say HIV and you could have some sort of a conversation because, and you would be like zero to two degrees of separation from somebody living or deeply impacted by HIV. In St. Louis. I went there in 2015 thinking that everybody would know who Robert Rayford was, that he would've been a local story that just hadn't, uh, broke free from the Missouriness of it all.

But that wasn't true. And people, HIV wasn't something that was on, uh, many people's minds. And that's fine. It was the summer after, uh, the Ferguson uprisings, like people were talking about justice in meaningful, deep ways connected to race. And then I come along and start talking about Robert Rayford, a black teenager who was living with HIV at the same time as, uh, um, Michael Johnson, a young person, was, uh, in jail due to HIV criminalization. And so just, you know, like right there, it's like race, sexuality, the state. And so when I go to St. Louis, the conversations and the work is, it's just totally different 'cause they're not being had as much, the structures of care are more hidden or are less present and the segregation of race, but also the segregation of health disparities is much greater there too. Um, and, um, when I'm there, so I don't, when I'm here, I'm primarily working at schools or I'm writing in my office, or like my kitchen, um, or I'm hanging out with Alex or I'm hanging out with the doulas online.

[25:05]

And then when I go to St. Louis, I am either working with this organization called Peter and Paul, where, um, there every Friday, um, there's an art class for people who are in transitional housing. And it's, uh, almost all people living with HIV who are in transitional housing. So we use art as a way to help people, uh, improve their decision-making capacities, to recognize the skills that they have. And I often use it as an opportunity to talk about Robert Rayford or to talk about like, like what does it mean when you understand that HIV can be a foundation on which we stand firmly and proudly, um, rather than something—'cause most of the time I have been in those, in these classrooms and everybody but me and one other person will be living with HIV and nobody will want to talk about it because it's so deeply heavily stigmatized.

But then once you invite someone to talk about it, and you don't make it prescriptive and you don't root it in trauma, and you don't root it in quote-unquote storytelling, it's amazing what gets released, what gets shared. It's really amazing. Um, so in a way, the work, when I'm in St. Louis, it is actually way more, for lack of a better word, grassroots. It's a lot more, uh, uncomfortable is not the right word, 'cause I, it's not uncomfortable for me, but it's, um, I don't take it—I think there's a way in which I can take HIV for granted in New York, and I don't take it for granted there. And maybe the best example, not the best example, but a powerful example is there's a museum there called the Museum of Contemporary Religious Arts. And for years, people had been telling me to go see it 'cause I went to seminary.

They're like, you'll like it. It's a seminary and it's artsy. And I was like, I don't want to go. And finally, two summers ago, I finally just googled it to be like, well, and [laughs] what I learned was that it was started in the nineties by, um, father Patrick, not Patrick Dempsey [laughs] something Dempsey. Um, Dr. Hot. Um, Father Terrence Dempsey, he, he started to do his dissertation and he was doing it on faith and art. He was a Jesuit priest. He was a Jesuit priest. And, um, his advisor said, do it on contemporary art. And it was the nineties. And so he, he, if you're gonna do something contemporary art-related in the 90s, it's gonna be about HIV. So the first exhibition had so much work, the founding exhibition of that museum, which I thought was gonna be boring, was rooted in HIV.

WALDEN: Wow.

KERR: Their second exhibition was all about HIV and I'm, and yeah. And so, um, I don't know if this is helpful, but something that I'm thinking a lot in our conversation is how I'm so adamant at the beginning of the conversation to be like, I don't care about the past, or I'm trying to distance myself from being someone whose HIV work is rooted in the past. And you've, in your own way intentionally are not gently pushed back being like, well, you do this—and then, so the two things that I'm working on now is there's a piece from that museum that, um, uh, is called "Don’t Mourn, Consecrate," and it was on display at the Grey Art Gallery in 1987. But it was like up two or three weeks earlier than the iconic, legendary, canonical, um, "Let the Record Show," which was at the New Museum, which often gets spoken about as the first public art about AIDS. Mm-hmm. when actually the first public art about HIV was by, uh, Cuban-American artist with HIV. And it's, it was almost largely forgotten. Who was it? Um, uh, Juan, I'll know the name soon. Um, Juan, I can't remember his last name. Juan González.

WALDEN: Okay.

KERR: And, uh, and we held—yeah, once I learned about that artwork, I was really excited not only 'cause it has a St. Louis collect, connection 'cause it's in their collection. And that's where I first heard about it. But also because now it, it looks like it was the first, um, consciously shared, institutionally supported public art about AIDS. And I'm using all those qualifiers because of course people made graffiti about AIDS before that. Right. Like, there was public art about AIDS before that. And then the second thing that I'm working on, that's part of this journal collection I'm doing for visual AIDS is New School-related.

KERR: In 1983, a student here, um, named Anthony Pellino. Um, he was in a design class and he, the assignment was like, here's this like crappy space, do something with it. And he made this park that he proposed a park that had three purposes. One, to help with wayfinding: two, to give rest and relaxation to folks; and then three, to be an AIDS memorial. This is in 1983. This is like, you know, a lot of work that I do is about AIDS memorials and the most iconic AIDS memorial piece is the quilt. That wasn't an idea until '85. The first garden, which is, predates the quilts, was in '86. So Anthony's 1983 plan is the earliest plan for an AIDS memorial that I know of. We're gonna publish this. I think what's gonna happen is people will come out of the woodwork being like, I had an AIDS memorial plan in 82, I had an AIDS— like we saw with Covid, how many people were doing impromptu AIDS, uh, Covid memorials, wherever they could, like putting masks on, um, fences or putting up little white flags or, um, you know, uh, rolling the names of everybody who had died on the side of walls in DC. Right. Like, there was all these things. So my, my sense is once we share Anthony's work that we'll see that a lot of people are thinking about what AIDS memorials were. But again, it's like, it brings us back to The New School, design, and AIDS.

[31:09]

WALDEN: Yeah. No, that's a special connection. Um, I've seen that in the, uh, the archive, like, so amazing.

KERR: It's so amazing.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: And so I guess I, and when way I think about Robert Rayford, when I think about Anthony and when I think about, um, Juan González, I'm, I'm interested in things that push or expand what we think of as history or expand what we think we know and unsettle us. I think that there's nothing, I think it's very dangerous for the historical record to get calcified and especially when it comes to HIV/AIDS. Yes, it's, we've been responding to it for over 40 years, but that is relatively not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. And there's so many people still alive who have unprocessed, unpacked, un-unpacked, HIV knowledge, trauma, power. And they should, I would like it, I mean, I think when anybody does an AIDS exhibition like what you're doing, I just think it's an opportunity to unleash that.

WALDEN: Yeah.

KERR: And some people will come look at the exhibition and they will, they will smile in a way and that's all they'll need. But some people will want to email you and some people will want to, whatever.

WALDEN: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: Yeah. I think, I mean, I was kind of speaking to this earlier, but um, you know, I think to approach—it's exactly that. It's just you ask one person what they know or remember and what, how they continue to experience and then they give you a few names. And just to be able to continue the conversation has been really rich. Um, last week I spoke with, uh, Mindy Fullilove.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: And so just to see all the different ways this branches but also turns back in on itself, I think is really special. Um, and I think we're also just, it seems like we're so uniquely positioned at this school to like continue circling the, these conversations and hopefully branching them out too.

KERR: Mm-hmm.

WALDEN: Um, so I really appreciate you being part of that.

KERR: Yeah. I appreciate you being a part of it.

WALDEN: Thank you.

KERR: Yeah.

WALDEN: I think that's a good note to end on.

KERR: That's perfect.

WALDEN: Thank you, Ted.

KERR: Thank you, Stan.

[audio file two ends, 33:21]