Here’s the Graying of AIDS team (i.e. Naomi Schegloff and myself) presenting at the Magnum Foundation’s Photography, Expanded Symposium at Parsons The New School for Design.

The symposium capped a year of workshops and presentations that tackled issues of documentary audience engagement in the digital realm. The Graying of AIDS was among four projects that were selected for the pilot of a PhotoEx project development initiative, during which artists were paired with design and communications experts for one-on-one meetings to implement a digital strategy for their work.

Not surprisingly, as much as we were ready to embrace the challenge, and as much as we wanted to cast aside our usual hesitations when it comes to our project’s specific target audience and issues of bridging the digital divide – in the end, both of our mentors (transmedia designer Christopher Taylor Edwards and social media strategist Anna Nolan) helped us home in on what matters most instead of being distracted by what is possible. Meeting audiences where they are and using all outlets available through partnerships and media outreach is what we have always done best.

Yes, we do want to create a new web platform in the long run, but the first step towards that goal is the realization that we are, at this point, an archive – maybe more so than a doc project. There, I said it.  One hundred (plus) interviews into Stories From an Aging Pandemic, we may not be the AIDS Quilt in size, or the Act Up Oral History Collection in historic value, but we are a unique collection of personal narratives that needs a permanent home; whether in collaboration with a library or an existing archive remains to be seen.  For now, we will focus on exhibitions in the real world and on finding new partners and funding.

We were honored to be in amazing company: the other projects on our pilot initiative panel included Pete Pin (I Am Khmer), Alissa Quart & Alice Proujansky (The End of the Middle), and Mark Strandquist (Performing Statistics, New Monuments & Windows from Prison). Be sure to check out their individual talks, as well as our joint Q&A that touched on everything from design to collaborative and participatory storytelling, to our individual and shared challenges and how to keep documentary-making sustainable….

You can view our Graying of AIDS presentation here:

 Posted with much delay, me culpa – mea digital culpa…. !!