After

After, 2014.

Inkjet Print on Platine Fibre Rag, 39cm x 26cm.

After re-imagines Nan Goldin’s Gilles and Gotscho Embracing (1992). The original photograph is part of a series in which Goldin documents a gay couple’s intimacy and care in the context of HIV/AIDS during the 1990s. The series traces this partnership over 1992-1993, following Gilles’ decline from health to death (from AIDS-related illnesses). In After, I seek to do more than reproduce the original moment, but rather consider personal and social changes in the context of HIV/AIDS. There have been significant advances in the understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS since the early-1990s, bringing more hope for dealing with (and living with) HIV/AIDS. We must nevertheless remain vigilant about the personal and social costs of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and at the heart of social issues are personal stories. Thus, I draw on the composition and motifs of Gilles and Gotscho Embracing to elicit a personal relationship in the wake of death and separation. The central relationship in After is between the remaining partner and the teacup and saucer, which is a mnemonic and material anchor for his partner. The tactility and intimacy between the subject and object seeks to question the certainty of sharp distinctions between absence and presence, on the one hand, and loss and hope, on the other. Possessions play an important role for both individuals and relationships: as a mnemonic for the absent partner, such objects also embody endurance in the present and hope for the future. In this case, hope is also for a future where HIV/AIDS is no longer a threat.