This article uses oral history interviews with the family and friends of Duane Puryear to document the history of one of the most frequently displayed panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The approaching fortieth anniversary of the Quilt and its recent acquisition by the National AIDS Memorial warrant a reexamination of how we engage with the Quilt as archive. Puryear’s panel demonstrates how we might use this enormous community art project to excavate local histories of activism in response to HIV and AIDS; it also challenges reductive political histories of the Quilt that view it as in binary opposition to histories of direct-action groups like ACT UP.

You do not currently have access to this content.