How is research and study a critical component of AIDS activism? How do we learn, remember, and grieve differently on paper, screens, fabrics, and video? How do computers and magazines, sweaters and scarves, videotapes and queer bars hold ghosts?
How do we let them go?
The Holding Patterns installation considers how Zoom and other pandemic technologies, composite onto screens, and also into rooms, flattening and deepening attention, connection, and care. A meditation on technologies of memory, with close attention paid to medium specificity, the installation comprises four hour-long interviews and their paper transcripts—remarkable conversations between friends and “AIDS workers”—two death-bed/legacy videos shot by Alexandra Juhasz on her friends’ request (in the 1990s and 2020s), as well as some of the things and photos shared in the process of remembering, celebrating, and fighting inside queer communities of care.
Audience members are invited to interact with the installation including viewing the legacy videos of Jim Lamb, a gay white male downtown performer who died painfully before there were meds at 29 in 1993 and Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, a Black disabled queer feminist media activist who died in 2022 on her own terms, in her sixties, and due largely to inequities in the American healthcare system and COVID in addition to their cherished effects.
Also on view will be selections from several archival collections at the ONE Archives: including those of Mina Kay Meyer, Yolanda Retter, and Kenneth L. Wiederhold.
Mina Kay Meyer (1940–2016) was a pioneering lesbian activist and community leader who, alongside her life partner Sharon Raphael, helped found the first women’s health clinic for lesbians in Los Angeles, co-founded the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, advanced LGBTQ rights and gerontology research, and remained deeply engaged in feminist, political, and Jewish activist communities throughout her life.
Yolanda Retter (1947-2007) was a librarian and archivist at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Library and an activist dedicated to providing a voice to lesbian and minority issues and preserving their history. Retter was a champion for social justice who organized numerous repositories on lesbian history around the city.
Kenneth L. Wiederhold (1946–1995) was a Los Angeles business executive and community leader, married to Drew Staffen, who became active in gay community organizations including SAGA and the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.
This exhibition is presented concurrently with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City.
People
This exhibition was curated by Dr. Alexandra Juhasz, Distinguished Professor of Film at Brooklyn College, CUNY with assistance from Alexis Bard Johnson and Quetzal Arévalo. The legacy videos on view feature James Robert Lamb and Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski.
James Robert Lamb (1963-1993) was a member of Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company in the late 80s and early 90s. Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski (1957–2022) was a prolific AIDS activist videomaker and an active member of WAVE, The Women’s AIDS Video Enterprise, in 1989.
The accompanying interview videos feature Jih-Fei Cheng, Marty Fink, Pato Herbert, and Theodore (Ted) Kerr. Jih-Fei Cheng is Associate Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Scripps College, a media and arts organizer, and former HIV/AIDS social service provider. Marty Fink is the author of Forget Burial: HIV Kinship, Disability, and Queer/Trans Narratives of Care, bringing together HIV narratives past and present toward prison abolition, trans activism, and a free Palestine. Pato Hebert is an artist, teacher, and organizer living with Long COVID. Theodore (Ted) Kerr is a writer, organizer, and founding member of What Would an HIV Doula Do?
Read more here: pleaseholdvideo.com
Related Events
- Friday, October 3, 2025, 6-9pm: Opening
- Saturday, October 4, 2025, 12-2pm: Political Grief Workshop
- Sunday, November 9, 2025, time tbd: Political Grief Online Workshop by What
- Thursday, December 11, 2025, 6-8pm: Our Government Tries to Kill Us: Queer Asian American Activism and Memory in Los Angeles from HIV to Covid
- Date and time to be determined: Last Address Tribute Walk: LA
