Good morning.
Greetings and welcome to the Tuesday, July 9th special joint committee with the civic development, public assets, native communities, and the civil rights, utilities, economic development, and arts committee.
I'm Councilmember Lisa Herbold.
I am the chair of half of this committee.
I'm excited to be co-hosting this lunch and learn on the AIDS Memorial Pathway with Councilmember Juarez, the chair of the other sponsoring committee.
Just some quick background.
In 2020, the plaza over Seattle's Capitol Hill light rail station next to Cal Anderson Park will become home to the AMP.
the AIDS Memorial Pathway.
It will enshrine the historic and current efforts of activists and advocates fighting to end HIV, AIDS, and discrimination.
The Council funded project scoping back in 2015, and in 2017 Councilmember Juarez sponsored Resolution 31783 to empower the Office of Arts and Culture to impanel and convene an interdepartmental team to help coordinate the project.
And our guests from the Arts Office will speak to the fantastic work of that IDT and all the efforts of the other departments.
I spoke with former Councilmember Rasmussen at a recent AMP project event, and we thought that this would be a great opportunity to elevate the work that you're doing as a model of successful coordination between departments and really powerful, thoughtful community engagement.
I'm so excited to host Councilmember Rasmussen at this table, as well as community members and engagement consultant Rosette Royale, Director Engstrom, other representatives from arts, as well as other important partners in the project, including Ra Ali Barnes, who's been here since the beginning as well.
Before I allow everybody to introduce themselves and launch into the discussion, I want to defer to Councilmember Juarez to see if she has any opening remarks as well and recognize that we've been joined by Councilmember Solano.
I feel like I'm in court opening remarks.
I feel like I should get ready to wind up here.
First of all, Councilmember Rasmussen, thank you so much.
You brought this to my attention a while ago, but we had been involved.
And all of you, I want to thank you.
We've worked with you on, I mean, Councilmember Herbold has been phenomenal in the front and the vanguard with arts.
And one of the issues we've been working on in this council and will continue to work on It's the social justice issues for the LGBT community that not are just the arts, but the arts reflect that community, and not only the heartbreak, but also the good things.
We know that working with Gender Justice League, the GSBA, Ingersoll, the ACLU on transgender rights, on rights of expression, on this country's continual abuse in certain states to weaponize the First Amendment, against people, LGBTQ people, to deny them services.
And even though this is an art-themed issue and what we're talking about is your history, but like the Native American history, this was, this took away lives.
And it took away lives at a time where people didn't care.
and the stigmatization and the lives that were lost were never really recognized.
Just like the Native American community, people are starting to use the word genocide because that's what happened to our people.
And what happened in the years, in the Reagan years, when this was at its worst, an epidemic, people demonized people, and there was a whole community where people just didn't care.
And so I'm hoping that we never have to see this again.
And when I was talking to Councilmember Rasmussen on the phone, we had a couple of long conversations.
Same when Councilmember Gonzalez passed, and we all agreed, of course, was the conversion therapy, another affinity I felt as a Native American person, trying to make us something we weren't.
We were not farmers, we were not Christians, we were not white, we were not all those things.
But the 300 years of historic trauma, what that did to our people, we are still feeling the effects.
So I don't want to get too far into the emotional weeds here, but that is my affinity with the LGBT community.
And so today for me is more than just doing the AMP project.
but recognizing a group, a historical group that has changed this country and I think our conscience.
So I want to thank you and I want to thank Council Member Herboldt for her leadership in this.
All right, thanks so much.
I'm sorry, I didn't want to end on a sad note.
No, it's powerful.
OK.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
It's just hard to make the transition to introductions, but I trust our participants will do that and carry us to a good place for the discussions.
Thank you very much Councilmember Erbold and Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Silvan.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
We're honored to be here before the council members and former colleague Bankshaw.
It's very nice seeing you.
I'm so glad that your calendar allowed you to be here.
As I was saying, we're really honored to be here today.
Between 1982 when the first case of AIDS was diagnosed in King County and 1996 when HIV infection became treatable but still not curable, over 3,000 young men had already died.
Four years ago, the Tacoma Art Museum held an exhibition called Still Here, Art Aids America.
It was a powerful display of artists' response to AIDS, and it's the epidemic that we were experiencing.
The exhibit caused people to ask what Seattle had done to commemorate those early days of AIDS, and the answer was nothing had been done.
Unlike other cities devastated by AIDS, Seattle has no memorial to remember the lives lost in that history.
How could it be that even though thousands had died here recently, most of them very young men, the history was being lost or forgotten already in less than 40 years?
The answer is that AIDS has disproportionately and overwhelmingly affected gay men, people of color, refugees, and immigrants.
The fact is that the history and the stories of minority communities is often not told, is incomplete, or distorted.
The Tacoma exhibit was a tipping point for me and many others.
I sponsored a green sheet, you all know what green sheets are, approved by the City Council in 2015, as Council Member Erbel said, to begin the process to develop what we now call the AIDS Memorial Pathway.
Where are the community's stories and history of this time?
The answer is in people's scrapbook, in newspaper clippings that they've saved.
And when people learn of our project, they bring us what they've saved over the years.
And I have examples of what people have brought me during the last couple of years.
And what these are are memorials of their friends.
They are articles in the Seattle Gay News, obituaries of young men.
is even a memorial that was given to me for Kel Anderson.
This is what people say, this is what's in their basements and in their cupboards at home.
And we want to do the best we can to ensure that these memories and all of this information is not forgotten.
Perhaps the most impressive is this from the Seattle Gay News that was studied by one person.
This is a list.
in very small print of the men that we know of who died of AIDS.
But all of us know, yeah, it goes on.
It's more than this.
This page.
I looked up names of people that I know who died.
They're not here.
So this story is still really incomplete.
I suspect that the number believed or reported to have died of AIDS is far greater.
than the 3,000 I mentioned earlier.
So this is what's in people's boxes, cupboards, basements.
And we want to bring this to light again.
And we can do that best through the AIDS Memorial Pathway.
This is one of the most touching ones.
This is of a man from Seattle who moved to San Francisco.
And he died when he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge when he could no longer bear the pain.
but he was suffering with HIV AIDS.
His sister, he was the 900th person to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
And he was listed 900th person from the beginning of the bridge.
Right.
So they called him number 900. His sister, who was from Seattle, did not want him to be remembered as number 900. She wanted people to know that he was a wonderful contributor to our community.
And the newspapers, including the New York Times, picked up that story about Ron Burst, and here is the story.
So we are determined also to make sure that people are remembered.
Yes, numbers are impressive, but it's the stories of individuals.
So as I said, most of the stories people have collected, but I would say they also develop in the hearts of people who have lived through those tragic times.
And those stories are very painful to share.
We're a group of volunteers who give many hours to create the AMP.
The Seattle Parks Foundation is our sponsor, our fiscal sponsor.
Our belief is that if we don't tell our story, our history, they'll be lost, just as happened to so many other minority communities.
Today we'll describe the progress that we've made with a strong support of the city, particularly the Office of Arts and Culture, the City Council, and others.
To create a physical place of reflection and remembrance, that's one goal, create a place.
The second goal is to tell the stories of what happened in our community, and our third goal is to be advocates for fighting against HIV-AIDS infection and calling for a cure.
So we're going to talk about the first two first.
And Jason Pluritt and Michelle Hassan, and I would like to recognize Michelle.
She's put in countless hours on this project as a volunteer.
They're going to talk us through or walk us through what we're doing to pull it all together to have this site at the light rail station on Capitol Hill.
Do you want to do introductions?
I think a quick go around would be really helpful.
Thank you.
And in your introduction, just maybe a couple words that describe your role with the project.
I'm often confused with Tom Rasmussen.
But my name is Royal Allie Barnes, and my role is to be really certain that African-American and the African diaspora and other people of color are included in the front end of this project.
So my function in the AMP is really to be a civic thought leader.
When I look at this project, I want it to be remembered that Africans, African Americans, and its diaspora, brown and black people, although not listed in many of these obituaries and not listed in articles, were part of this genocidal regime.
That is my passion.
Hello there, my name is Rosette Royale.
I'm the story gathering consultant for the AMP, and my task has been to go out and to meet some of these black and brown people and to capture their stories for a video archive.
We'll talk about that more later.
Hi, my name's Jason Plourd, and I'm the project manager for the AMP.
I'm the one full-time staff member for the project right now.
I'm Michelle Hasson and I am the chairperson of the AIDS Memorial Pathway Project.
Hi, I'm Christopher Paul Jordan.
I'm the lead artist for the centerpiece artwork.
So my role is really listening to community, especially folks most impacted by HIV and AIDS, to understand how we can go about memorializing, but also celebrating the...
Oh, sorry.
Just talk right into it.
How we can celebrate the lives and experiences and contributions of folks in communities impacted by HIV and AIDS, both in the past and for the future.
My name is Kristen Ramirez.
I work in the Office of Arts and Culture.
I'm part of the public art team, and I've had the distinct pleasure of working with the AIDS Memorial Pathway for the last year and a half, project managing all the different iterations of artists, temporary art projects, a boot camp we hosted, and various pieces that we put together to bring life to this complex and dynamic project.
Thank you for having me.
Good afternoon.
Thanks for having us.
My name is Randy Engstrom.
I'm the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture.
I have had the privilege and responsibility of trying to steer this through the universe of city government and facilitate a community-driven, city-supported, inclusive, representative project that can do justice to the legacy that needs to be remembered.
Thank you all for your participation today and throughout the history of the project and moving us forward.
Who's next?
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
I'd like to thank all of you and the various committees that you represent, because I think we've touched all of them, if you count them all up.
As I mentioned, I'm Michelle Hassan, and I chair the AIDS Memorial Pathway Project.
In particular, I really must share with you Randy Angstrom, Christian Ramirez, Ruri Jampolsky, and all of the group in the Office of Arts and Culture.
without their support and literally holding our hands, we wouldn't be at the place we are today.
Randy said to me early on in this project, Michelle, you need a lead artist to do a master plan for this project, and we're gonna help you.
And they've not stopped helping us.
So, that being said, what we have, the AIDS Memorial Pathway, is a site-specific art installations that tell the story of HIV-AIDS in our community over the decade and a half when it was indeed a pandemic.
And it is also intended, as Tom has said, to have a call to action.
because it's not gone.
It's still in many underserved communities.
And that is probably the piece where the collection of stories makes its mark.
So I think what I'd like to do is I'd like to turn this over to Jason Plourd, who's a project manager, and he's going to walk you through a series of slides.
And, you know, we need to raise some money so that you can have a screen on that side.
But we're going to ask you to turn around and take a look at the screen behind you.
We have it.
You got it?
You have it?
You're okay.
All right.
Okay.
So the AIDS Memorial Pathway is using art in various ways in multidisciplinary formats to tell the story of HIV and AIDS.
And in early 2020, the plaza over the Seattle Capitol Hill Light Rail Station in the north edge of Cal Anderson Park is where the AIDS Memorial Pathway will be calling home.
The AMP will be complete in a very quick timeline.
Just a little background, as Tom mentioned, in 2016, we started funding from city council.
Tom Rasmussen, Leonard Garfield, Michelle Hassan convened a small group of stakeholders.
They were working with Paul Feldman at the time to lead this group to identify sites for the memorial, engage with community leaders, identify design parameters, and create a community action group, which is now a group of about 50 folks who are a part of that community group, making sure the AMP happens.
And after an extensive search, the site was secured in 2017. And you can see on the map here, this is Capitol Hill, Cal Anderson Park to the left of the screen there, Broadway along the top, East John Street along the right-hand side.
And the areas in red are sort of the spaces identified for where the amp will be.
Before, Jason, before you leave this, I don't know how much the council people know about the housing development that's going on up there.
There's 428 units of housing.
110 of them are in a building that is owned and operated by Capitol Hill Housing.
The other buildings, the remaining buildings have 20%, they're essentially market rate housing, but about 20% are set aside for low income.
So this will be, if you count, there are two and three bedroom units on this site, so if you start to count it up, it's probably just under 1,000 people that would be living right up there.
Yes, and we've been working with that developer.
This, just to say, I think there's a formatting issue with Mac versus PC because the red area here are shifted up a little bit further than the plaza and the passageway and the park, so it's a little bit off in this iteration on screen.
So off in which way?
So it's shifted up.
So the red, so the circular plaza below the top red square there, like they should be the same space.
And then that passageway, the pathway is not going to go on top of the buildings.
It's going to go between the buildings there.
So just if there was any confusion, that's I think a helpful clarification.
Okay, good.
So yeah, and being at the heart of Capitol Hill, as was sort of inferred before, provides a deep cultural and historic connection, as this neighborhood was the locus of King County's AIDS epidemic.
So with the site secured, the community action group determined that our goals in the AMP community-driven and collaboratively funded, we use public art to create a physical place for remembrance and reflection.
We utilize technology to share stories about the epidemic and the diverse community responses to the crisis, and provide a call to action to end HIV, AIDS, stigma, and discrimination.
So Horatio Law was hired as our lead artist in 2018 to develop the AMP AIDS Memorial Pathway Master Art Plan, which was completed in January of this year.
The art plan includes a group of essays that convey background histories, personal experiences, and a sense of place regarding HIV-AIDS in Seattle and King County.
I highly recommend you taking some time to read through them.
It's a great collection of work.
And it also recommends concepts and inspirations, includes pertinent information of the designated art zones around the physical site.
The plan specified artwork costs within the overall AMP budget, which is $2.94 million.
The layout of the AMP.
The AMP, as identified in the art plan, is three major segments with each focused on a different emotional and symbolic aspects.
And so there'll be areas that really do focus on the remembrance and reflection.
There are areas that celebrate creativity in life.
and areas that honor community courage and resilience.
This Venn diagram here sort of shows those aspects, the plaza being sort of the center of celebrating creativity in life, the community room honoring community, and Calendars in Park being a place of remembrance and reflection.
There's overlapping pieces, which we're calling connecting artworks, and here they're identified as wayfinding artwork.
that will connect all three areas.
And then overall, we're using digital technology to have an augmented reality component so that people have access.
I'll talk a little bit about that later.
So are the zones more geographic designations?
Yeah, they are definitely geographic designations.
And then these emotional aspects are sort of attributed to each of those areas.
And there's a map coming up here that can show this a little bit more clearly.
So these physical sites were identified.
There's six separate areas here.
We took those with working with the Office of Arts and Culture to coalesce those into four artwork opportunities and have gone through calls for RFQs to select artists for those artwork.
You'll see here that the centerpiece artwork, which is identified as number one, will be sited at the north edge of the plaza, and that is the work that Christopher Jordan has been selected to do, and we'll hear a little bit more from him later.
The connecting artworks are what's enumerated here as six, two, and three.
So these pieces that go from the north, the area adjacent to John Street, through the plaza, yeah, down the passageway through the plaza, and over the Festival Street connecting to the park.
So those three areas there are connecting artworks.
We've selected the Seattle-based team of Civilization to do those artworks.
There's a community room in the Capitol Hill housing space.
It's an interior space, but it's visible to the outside because it's a full glass floor-to-ceiling wall.
So people within the community room and outside will be able to see the artwork that'll be cited in that space.
And then Area 5, all the way to the left there, that's the Cal Anderson Park piece.
So about 50 feet into the park will be relandscaped and have public artwork that will be conducive to a place of reflection and remembrance.
As you're going to hear more later, as part of our mission, we're doing community story collection.
It's an ongoing effort of the AMP, collecting interviews with people impacted by HIV and AIDS to tell their stories of our shared history.
The first year recordings were supported by a Department of Neighborhoods grant that specifically focused on communities of color.
Some of the folks interviewed are here on screen.
And by sharing these stories online and at community events, we strive to promote historical awareness, encourage empathy, and provide a call to action to end stigma, discrimination, and HIV AIDS.
Briefly, I'll talk about the augmented reality component.
We're using a quick pause.
Yes.
Yeah, I'm Jason, what?
Yes.
So I can tell you who they are.
That's Alexa Manila on the top.
Alexa Manila in the top left corner.
Next to Alexa is Deontay.
He's the one with his chin and his hand.
Below Alexa is Mario Astani, originally from Cuba, and in the bottom right is Vicky Marie Nicola.
And I just want to say the community presentation that I mentioned attending earlier was at Langston Hughes, and it was a curated collection of some of these stories and a conversation with some of the folks featured in the stories.
And it was just, it was so incredibly moving to understand the trauma that people are still living with, but yet doing so with such strength and resilience and courage.
And it really drove home for me how this project is going to be so healing for so many people who don't have an outlet to talk about their experiences of losing people and living with fear of this deadly, deadly disease for so many years.
And I wanna thank Rosette for doing that work, because I know it took a toll.
It did, thank you.
And we'll talk about that a little bit more.
So, another way to realize the missions of the AMP and to use technology as best we can is incorporating augmented reality.
So, we're going to be contracting with an independent creative digital team to construct an augmented reality component.
This means that on-site...
No one should get electrocuted here.
That on site people have access to information, resources, stories, names of those lost.
It's using digital devices such as people's smartphones or tablets.
to be able to look through those and have an interactive art experience, as well as be able to access a lot of the things that we'll have online and digital.
It's another way to be more informative beyond the physical artwork, which will be more symbolic.
Is this like when you go into a library or a museum and they give you that little thing that you have to carry around, you can just do it right from your phone like you do at the museums in New York?
Yeah, the question was whether this was like in a museum where you are using a device to do a guided tour and that's one way.
There's many ways that augmented reality is being incorporated, but yes, you'd be looking through a digital device and it would, you know, if you fixate on something that is identified by the technology, by the app, it will bring you to selections that you can learn more about this thing, you can interact with it, You can sign up, you can participate by adding something from your perspective as well.
Can you buy merchandise?
You might be able to buy merchandise.
That's not what we'll be doing.
That t-shirt, you're looking for that.
We are working with Microsoft.
to really identify the appropriate technology for what we want the visitor experience to be.
And then when they help us identify that, then we will be interviewing developers who do that kind of work to be able to match that up.
And you had a question?
Yeah, just first of all, just this is really, really an excellent idea.
And as you were saying, Mr. Rasmussen, that so many stories are left unsaid and entire histories have been erased.
We know that as, you know, for people of color, many peoples that were colonized.
And I think the experience of the LGBTQ community, and especially if you look at LGBTQ people of color and so on, you know, there's so many layers to the kind of invisibility that we have had throughout history.
And so these projects like this one are really important.
And I think the medium of art is quite an effective and sort of evocative medium to actually engage people.
Specifically on that technology that you were talking about, I'm really excited to hear that you have plans for that because I think that there are, the technology is actually evolving quite well.
I was just going to say my husband uses one of those apps that you can point at a tree or a flower and you can get the name of it.
You actually end up learning a lot through that process.
And so, no doubt, I think we have good technologies that we can pick from.
But the specific question I was going to ask on that was, do we have plans as part of that technology for people to learn more, to also have different languages in which that could be explained?
Because I feel that, especially with the question of LGBTQ community, HIV, AIDS, I think we should have international languages as well because I think there are many young people in that community who want to take up these issues.
I know in the South Asian diaspora in the Seattle area, this is a big question because it's not an easy thing.
It requires cultural shifts and a lot of people are doing great work in terms of bringing LGBTQ issues to the forefront of the South Asian community.
I know this will be relevant to other immigrant communities as well, so I feel like language diversity would be great.
Thank you for bringing that up.
And the answer is yes.
At the forefront of everything we're doing is universal design and accessibility, and we want to make sure that it's accessible to people with different languages, but also with different abilities.
So I'm glad you brought that up, and we definitely are keeping that at the forefront.
So beyond the permanent artworks which we are working on getting completed within our time frame here, one of the things mentioned in the Horatio included with the master art plan was temporary artwork.
while construction is happening, that we're engaging with local artists and engaging with audiences and letting them know about the AMP, but is also bringing out the mission of HIV awareness to folks.
throughout the city in a diversity of ways.
So there are five artists that we commissioned this past year to do temporary artworks.
You've got a guide here that gives a summary of each of those pieces.
Some of them, three of them, are physical pieces that are hanging around the site, so along Broadway and into Nagel Place, pieces by Gabriel Strongberg.
Pete Rush, and Timothy White Eagle.
Unfortunately, the pieces that Timothy White Eagle hung on the northwest corner of Callinson Park were ripped down and stolen.
So he's doing a repeat, he's doing a community art building session this Saturday on July 13th to do another artwork that's sort of in reference to his original pieces, but also will be there standing in the face of of that destruction and vandalism.
So anyway, we invite you all to attend that if you can this Saturday from 5 to 8. There's two other performance artworks.
Clyde Peterson did a performance in Cal Anderson Park, and David Rue is choreographing or coordinating choreographed pieces once a month in and around the light rail station and Cal Anderson Park.
And they did the first one last month and it was a lot of fun.
students from Spectrum Dance that were there.
So yeah, so really if we're using a variety of art forms to really bring awareness and stay connected to the AMP.
And so are these, the live performances, are they pop-up in nature?
Are they scheduled?
Well, they're both.
They're sort of scheduled pop-ups, but they are very short.
They're like five-minute pieces that happen, but they're on the third Friday of every month at 5.30, and the locations are identified in the pamphlet here and on our website and Facebook page.
The project timeline, we've summarized a little bit, but we selected our lead artist in June of 2018. Between August and November, there was a lot of community engagement that happened in developing that plan.
The final art plan was delivered January 2019. From April through September of this year, we're selecting artists for each art zone.
The four we talked about are the centerpiece artwork, the connecting artworks, the Cal Anderson Park piece, and the community room.
June of this year was when the temporary artworks launched in conjunction with the Queer Art Walk on June 13th.
Final concepts for the physical pieces of artwork are going to be complete by the end of this year.
They're being completed from August through December.
And that leaves next year, January through June, for artists to fabricate and install the artworks on site.
And by July of 2020, we are hoping that the physical pieces of artwork will be complete, but we do expect that the Cal Anderson Park piece will be completed after.
It may require a longer period of time, just because of different departments and approvals that are needed for that, as opposed to the private TOD site.
Can I ask a question?
Yeah.
Is this the right time to ask about, Madam Chair, are we going to get to where you're at in your fundraising?
Where we are in fundraising?
Is that what you're going to talk about?
Yeah, Michelle can definitely answer that.
Yes, do you have a question on just kind of where you're at?
Because sometimes when we...
We're just a little over halfway, and I would like to turn around and look at Marla Serikson.
Marlis and I are doing the bulk of the fundraising, and our goal is to be finished with the fundraising by the end of this calendar year, if not before.
So we have about $1.7 million that's raised out of the $2.9 million budget, and there's probably another three-quarters of a million dollars out there being considered.
So we're waiting for a response from the county.
We've had a wonderful response from the state.
and an equally wonderful response from the city.
So, does that help?
Yes.
Okay.
And a significant amount is the private fundraising, too.
What would you say the percentage would be for that?
The private fundraising is at this point...
Help, Marlis.
1.1.
1.1 is private fundraising so far.
We've been very encouraged.
Fantastic ratio.
Yeah, no kidding.
Chris, are you up next?
Oh, I'm sorry.
No, that's okay.
I think, yeah, the last slide here just is reiterating a lot of our stakeholder agencies and organizations that we've been working with.
The Seattle Parks Foundation, of course, is our fiscal sponsor.
Office of Arts and Culture, Girding Edelman, Sound Transit.
Seattle Parks Department, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities, as well as the State of Washington that is, as we mentioned, has given us significant funding.
And then site partners have been Berger Partnerships, Scamata Workshop, Hewitt Architects, and Lise Crutcher Lewis.
And now, without further ado.
I just wanted to first underscore the collaboration with all of the departments who helped get us to where we are now.
Both the departments within the city, the parks department, SPU, the library, SDOT, have all been really critical partners, DON in supporting the work you'll hear about shortly.
And Sound Transit, you know, interagency partnerships can be tricky, and they've really been a great partner.
We're happy to have their support and have them in the room with us today.
And yeah, I don't want to understate the role that Berger has played as the folks who designed the park, their willingness to lean into this project and this partnership.
with its community elements, its interdepartmental elements, its artwork elements, has been really, really critical.
And I just want to give a lot of praise to Kristen Ramirez, who's the project manager for our public art team.
This is not a normal public art project, whereby a utility or a capital department gives us a budget and then we create a piece of work.
This is an extremely interactive and collaborative community design, community-led process.
It's temporary and permanent projects.
It's public-private partnerships.
It's really pushed the way that we do our work, and I think Kristen deserves a lot of kudos for that.
And to Rory Yampolsky, the director of our public art program, who's also been willing to roll the dice on doing things in a way we haven't done them.
There's a village behind the village that's the two of us that you see, but there's a lot of folks who've put their hands on this and who've made it possible.
So I just want to name that.
A lot of times when the city creates an IDT, that's sort of an invitation for the city to take over, and that definitely has not happened in this case.
This is still, despite the fact that we have an IDT that is made up of many city departments, this is still truly a community-led project.
Yeah, and I still remember when Council Member Rasmussen called me in 2015 and said, this is something that we have to do as a city.
And there wasn't really a roadmap for it.
There wasn't yet money for it.
We didn't know how we were going to do it, but it was clear that it needed to happen.
I don't know if you remember 2017, but there was a period of time where we had four mayors in 75 days.
This project was supported all the way through that.
In fact, I think the IDT was legislated in 2017 during that budget process.
So I just think that really speaks to the city's commitment to this work, the council, the mayor's office, the departments, the budget office.
People have really stepped in and I just wanted to appreciate the team effort that it took to get us to where we are.
And I could not be more happy that Christopher Ball Jordan is going to talk about his project and that he was chosen to do this first piece.
And just before we move on, and I've been eager to hear from you, but Council Member Bagshaw has something to say.
Thank you.
I want to just acknowledge everybody at this table.
Christopher, you and I have not met, but I know about your work.
I'm delighted that you're going to be participating in this.
Jason, thank you.
Michelle, for your leadership on this.
Rosette, I just really appreciate the work that you are doing with stories.
Royal, always good to see you.
Council Member Rasmussen, thank you for for pulling me in.
You're welcome.
And I appreciate that, Kristen.
Great work on it.
I'm going to have to excuse myself.
I will pick up the rest of this, but of course I will be seeing you and never miss an opportunity for an envelope.
So thank you.
Thank you for making the time to be here.
This gentleman made sure that he called me a lot.
So I just want to make sure that people know that Council Member Rasmussen, not only dedicated and relentless, but always kind and always a gentleman and always calling me and letting me know what's going on and what he needed.
So it's not just magic.
People actually call and get things done.
So, so thank you.
Likewise, a lot of calls from Tom.
I just wanted to add a couple more thoughts and a question because I also will have to leave in a few minutes.
One, I was just noting, I was reading the article from the magazine here just to reiterate the points that you all made about what a colossal crisis that the community has dealt with over the decades.
This talks about how before the life-saving drugs began to change everything, the death toll in King County alone stood at 3,276, more than three times the number of Washingtonians killed in Vietnam, which obviously, it also puts in new perspective, at least for younger generations, about what this meant in terms of what people went through.
My question was, in terms of the artwork that we are going to be seeing, how are you addressing the, also sort of bringing forward not only, obviously, the tremendous sadness and courage that individuals both went through and showed, but also how the gay community and also the community at large, the community that wants social justice and has a vision for social justice, how they came together and got organized for many things.
I mean, Capitol Hill has a rich history of the LGBTQ community and allies organizing together.
not to mention ACT UP and ACT UP chapters and the role they, the critical role they played in addressing the HIV AIDS crisis, not under stigma, but, you know, advocating strongly for health care and research and all of that.
How is that going to be addressed through the artwork?
Because I don't think it should just be individual, obviously, it should be how we came together and did it.
And then the other observation I was just going to make very quickly is, that at a time when hate crimes have been on the rise throughout the country, you know, not to mention the question of how Donald Trump's election has, you know, emboldened the right wing, I think this is going to play a big role in counteracting that, you know.
Council Member Rasmussen has a response.
Well, thank you.
One of the things that's really unique about Seattle that I've heard from those who are really active at the very beginning with regard to the crisis is that unlike other cities or communities, this city really came together, particularly the various LGBT groups and the healthcare groups.
people working in human services and social services in a way that was remarkable from in comparison through the rest of the U.S.
So people worked very collaboratively together.
I think that we'll see that reflected in the oral histories that we're gathering from people like Dr. Bob Wood who was at the King County Health Department.
But also as you may have seen in that master art plan description that Jason told us or told us about is that It is to tell the stories, the art is to tell the stories, and that's one of the significant parts of the story, of collaboration, working together to address this crisis.
And how the artists will do that, that's up to them, but it's been, I think, made quite clear.
But that is an important part of our story.
The other thing that I would like to mention, too, is that this is going to be a great gathering place for the community, and there'll be lots of people living there.
So what we want to do is to make it optimistic, give people courage, that even in the face of great crisis, a community can come together and that we can survive, that we are resilient, that when people turn their backs on us, such as the federal government, that we will take care of our own.
We will do it on our own to support each other and survive.
We see, and that's part of our call to action too, I would say, we see incredible discrimination being brought now by the federal government on our trans community.
And Rosette can talk more about his experience in trying to interview people from the trans community.
And that is one of our goals.
We're all in this together.
We're not turning our back on anyone.
We're not gonna allow scapegoating and shaming and blaming to go on.
And hopefully that'll be reflected in the art because that's what we would like to do through the art as well.
I think that's a great segment to Christopher Paul Jordan to talk about the art.
Can we go there?
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, fantastic, thank you.
Well, I mean, first of all, this is super exciting because, you know, just understanding how hard this team has fought to make this possible and how hard the broader community has fought to make this possible.
This journey started for me several years ago with a lot of direct action work around challenging the ratio of black communities within the historicization of HIV and AIDS.
But what sticks out to me as being most central and critical with this project and where it's situated and when it's happening is the fact that one of the histories that people don't understand about HIV and AIDS is how it's completely entrenched with the history of the housing crisis.
So there was a study which really revolutionized epidemiology called a synergism of plagues which looked at the connection between planned shrinkage in the Bronx and New York and the perpetuation and escalation of HIV and AIDS.
For vulnerable communities, if you don't have safe housing, if you don't have access to a stable place to live, no amount of education or intervention is going to suppress the crisis.
So this work and this to take place within the heart of a housing development that has centered a priority around affordable housing, not just within the capital housing building, but within the other surrounding spaces.
in a time where Capitol Hill is becoming increasingly inhospitable towards LGBT communities, communities of color, and a time where the heart of Seattle is becoming increasingly, I would say, violent towards poor people in general, it's really crucial that we think about how this, the HIV-AIDS crisis is really one of the few episodes within American history where no amount of racial privilege and no amount of economic privilege would shelter someone from the heart and the core of the experience, from the systemic discrimination, but also the real risk of death.
And so what's important about historicizing this work effectively and equitably is that it really poses the most central questions to us as a society about who matters.
So in the time that we live in right now where these questions are really on every front nationally, regionally, and locally being posed to us as a community, the power and potential of this artwork to reframe the way that we think about who matters and to try to create and imagine a space where the people at the most push to the margins are where, how do we, I guess the question for me with this is like, how do we create something with the fortitude and power and spiritual prowess to make it worthwhile for our most impacted communities to actually take a space of home and belonging at the center of Capitol Hill?
How do we make this a space that is inclusive and welcoming and warm?
and spirited enough to make people feel like they belong in this place and to feel a strong connection to those histories.
And so, for me, the process with that, my role is not to design what that is.
My role is to co-imagine that and facilitate the community coming together to address and imagine that together.
So my approach is really looking at the history of hospitality within LGBT communities and communities of color and in all of our intersections how we've come together to support one another and in experiences where no one else cared and the kind of cultural production that emerges from that space.
as a space that allows our community to be a more livable place for everyone.
So it's really an honor.
I can't say how much of an honor it is to be able to be in this kind of collaboration with the many generations of folks who have fought to make this a reality.
And I really think about how the future, how much of the future is contingent upon us standing up and showing up to make this what it deserves to be right now.
And Council Member, that's why we work with artists.
Your vision for this and the vision that was set even before you came on as part of this project, I think is really aligned with some of the issues that the city is struggling with.
We recognize that our neighborhoods, our communities have changed, and people have been displaced who have been historic residents of those neighborhoods.
And, you know, even though the neighborhood of Capitol Hill has changed, the neighborhood of the Central District has changed, we recognize that people still come back to those neighborhoods, folks who have been displaced, and they need gathering places.
And that's really important.
It's kind of like, it feels a little bit like, you know, the, you know, we've already, what's the expression?
Let the cat out the door?
I don't think that's the right expression.
Cat out of the bag.
But, you know, it's incredibly important when you also look at what happens when neighborhoods change.
We had a presentation to my committee a couple months ago about hate crimes, which we were talking, referencing earlier.
And a professor from University of Washington had done a geospatial study of hate crimes and how they happen in neighborhoods that have experienced this change.
And so we see a rise in hate crimes against LGBTQ people in Capitol Hill, the historic neighborhood of LGBTQ people.
And so that's another reason why I think it's so important for the city to support projects like these that are gathering places.
So even though people have been displaced from the neighborhood as residents, businesses have been displaced, we are creating gathering places to underscore the message that this is your neighborhood.
It will always be your neighborhood in the city of Seattle.
Thank you for that.
As we move to Rosette Royale and his narrative work, I want to make one point that Rosette and I talk about quite often, and that is that the narrative is a bridge for education, for learning, for connecting, for historical, and most importantly, for emotional.
emotional reservoir.
And I also want to acknowledge Rosette for the sheer amount of emotional trauma that he engages in every time he goes for a story, every time he goes for a narrative.
So I want to make that public recognition.
Thank you, Rosette.
Thank you, Royal.
And I get really emotional when this happens, whenever I start talking about this project.
But first, I think that we will talk about the specifics.
If we can go to the PowerPoint presentation so I can just give you some information, and then we're going to go to a narrative story.
All right, so here, again, I'm the story gathering consultant for the AMP.
I was hired in end of March last year and have been working since then.
My position ended just the end of June.
So over that time frame, I've spoken to and gather stories from 33 people through video and audio interviews, along with written testimonies, and they have identified as Black, African American, Native, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latinx, biracial, multiracial, or as people of color.
and some were adopted and unsure of their ancestry.
And so this grant was specifically geared toward getting the stories from black and brown people, those people whose stories aren't often gathered and listened to.
And I guess I would like to say that often I hear people say, oh, we're giving a voice to these people, but actually these people all have voices.
The issue is really listening to their voices.
And so that's what this grant allowed me to do and will allow the city to do as well.
So they ranged in age from 24 to 69, range of gender expressions, though folks who identified as trans didn't consent to interviews because they were concerned about their safety, one, or two, they necessarily thought that people wouldn't would disregard their stories.
And, you know, they've been disregarded so often that sometimes it's easy to internalize that.
And so it's taken...
I was not able to do it in that time frame, but I am so interested in speaking to trans people and hearing their stories, because that is a part of what we don't hear.
So I'll say that.
Some of the subjects are living with HIV.
Others had family members who died of complications from AIDS or family members who are living with HIV.
And some work are worked for organizations that serve people.
And all the work that I went through, I gathered 60 plus hours of storytelling, sitting down with these individuals.
And most of these individuals came through connections with these partner organizations.
I really feel it's important to mention them here.
So it's ARTH, which is African American Reach and Teach Health Ministry, Babes Network, which deals with women living with HIV and AIDS, Bailey Boucher House, which is the first place where people who are living and dying for AIDS could go.
Center for Multicultural Health, Entre Hermanos, Gay City, and POCAN.
POCAN, which is just right down the street from me, so I have also a great affinity for POCAN as well.
So, those are just some of the specifics, but now I think it'd be great to hear a little bit from some of the people that I spoke to, so we have a short video here.
I was with a boyfriend, a so-called boyfriend.
It eventually became sexual.
After the fact, he then came and told me, oh, by the way, I said, yeah.
He says, I've got it.
I said, got what?
He says, I got it.
I'm like, what is it?
You know, duh.
And he says, I got AIDS.
I said, AIDS?
He said, yeah.
I'm supposed to be medicated, but I don't take any medication.
I said, well, why didn't you tell me before?
He said, I already thought you had it.
I said, why would you think I already had it?
Because I live in my car?
He said, no, everybody's got it.
My buddy, James, he was from Boston.
He would always go to the hospital.
And there's James right there, right there.
That's my best friend.
He's my best friend, best friend, best friend.
He kept the secret for the longest.
And I would always go visit him.
I didn't know what was wrong.
He would never tell me what was wrong with him or anything like that until I really didn't know.
I really didn't know that he did still.
I still didn't know that he had AIDS.
because he kept his secrets for so long.
I didn't know until I went to his funeral what he died of.
He died of AIDS because his mom told me.
Yeah.
I used to love to listen to him talk, because he had that Boston accent, like car, and stuff like that.
And that's...
I didn't really understand why he couldn't tell me.
But I guess he just couldn't.
That reason.
Couldn't.
So, those are just two people.
That's Vicki Marie Nicola and Robert Earl White.
You know, I say their names because they have altered the course of my life.
And I guess that's not what I expected when I started.
You know, you get a job and you think, oh, OK, well, I'm going to do the job.
And you really don't know what's going to happen when you do the job.
And I realized that the job wasn't about sitting down with people and, you know, having a camera run.
It was about creating relationships with people.
And those relationships have changed me.
And I realized that if they could change me, then these people could help change how we view HIV-AIDS in this region.
By sharing stories that we don't hear, that have been ignored, that have been overlooked, we now, in this city, get a chance to reframe how HIV and AIDS has impacted the region.
We may have one version of how things happen, but now we understand through this, I understand that it's much broader, that so many different things happened.
You heard Vicky talk about how someone thought that about her because she lived in her car, right?
Here we are, we're talking about homelessness.
Here they are, they're talking about friends, they're talking about their loved ones, they talk about family members.
And I guess the thing that I realized is that HIV-AIDS is like this great big window.
And through the window, you can see all of the social issues that are going on in the communities.
But we tend to think of it as like, oh, it's HIV, it's just this disease.
But it touches upon substance abuse, about domestic violence, the themes that kept coming up that people expressed, I was at first shocked by, but then I wasn't.
Because I realized that all of these fibers are in our lives, and that what happened is that the people got to tell the stories about the things that had happened to them.
And there is this thing that I don't know if people can understand, when you watch the video that happens in a room, when someone has something that has been pent up, that people don't listen to, when they get to release it, it changes the energy in the room.
And so that, I really feel like that change happened to me on a molecular level.
And that as I continued with the project and sat down with people, you know, some people didn't have, some people lived in their apartments.
One person talked about how he lives in his apartment, but next door to him, there is a place where they were gonna rent this house for $3,500.
And he said, I can't imagine living in a place like that.
Or I can't afford it.
Like, I live in affordable housing.
Where would I be without it?
So here would be a man who's 65, who's black, who's HIV positive, who could be homeless without affordable housing.
Right?
So all of these issues, they kept changing me.
Hearing these stories, they changed me on a molecular level.
And I really believe that what this project can do, and I have to thank the Department of Neighborhoods and the project manager, A-Lynn Ruth, for believing in us and helping us so much to really focus on these black and brown people, to hear them.
And...
I just really...
encourage us to listen to each other.
I mean, it sounds so silly, but that's what I had to do for 60 plus hours was listen.
And it really can do so much.
to change how we all interact with each other, to listen.
And so that's what I had the experience to do.
And, you know, now I want to make sure that other people get to listen to these stories as well.
And that these people get to go out and talk about this project, to talk about themselves, to share their stories, to know that they are just as important as someone named Larry Kramer.
right, whose name many of us may know around HIV and AIDS, that Vicky Marie Nicola has just as much to say as someone who's always on television, who is always in the newspaper, even though she lived in her car with her pit bull.
So this has been just a fantastic project.
I have had so many jobs, and I've never had a job like this in my life.
And I know no matter whatever happens to me, that I feel like this is the best thing that I've ever done.
And I actually didn't do it.
They did it.
I just sat there and recorded it.
So, Rosette, how do we benefit from this work?
I watched a 30-minute film that you curated of some of these interviews.
How will other people have an opportunity to experience the transformation that you've gone through from these really powerful stories?
Great question.
I think Jason will help with what our next step is.
I built our YouTube channel specifically as a platform for people to be able to access these online.
I've been working with Rosette to lay a plan on how we're going to post all of these videos.
We've done a few of them, but we're now working out that they've been you know, in the can, so to speak, we're putting them together to be able to for public viewing and consumption.
Rosette.
And also, you know, we've been in, I've been in discussions with Marcellus Turner from the Seattle Public Library about trying to find another way to archive these because what are we going to do for the future with all these stories?
We need sort of a manager, a curator of this material.
So we had a meeting and we plan to talk a little bit more about how the library can become involved with this as well.
Yeah, looking for long-term partners for sure.
We've been entrusted with these stories, some of the most personal and painful stories of people's lives.
I think we need to honor that.
allow those stories to help other people, help our community.
I think that one of the most promising opportunities we may have is with the Seattle Public Library, and so we want to explore that with the library because it's so accessible.
But you chair, well we'll need your help because the library is very interested in working with us.
This is one of the unique things about a quote AIDS memorial unquote.
There are a lot of ones that kind of look like street furniture, like typical memorials.
People spend a lot of time and work on them and they're beautiful and they're parks.
But what we're doing is we're creating not only the physical space, but we're telling the stories.
And I'm not aware of another community, whether it's Paris or San Francisco or New York, that is working to do that, to bring this to life.
And it's challenging.
It takes talent like someone like Rosette who can gain trust.
I mean, Rosette, you're doing more than letting the microphone run or the recorder run.
You're creating trust.
People do not easily give up these stories.
It takes a lot of time.
And so the storytelling is what's gonna be unique and we want this to be shared with the community because it's been entrusted with us to do something with it.
And I just want to underscore your point.
I think to honor.
that gift of the folks who gave those stories, to honor it means that we have an obligation to make sure that they're heard, because those are stories that were given with the understanding that they would help somebody, help other people.
And so it's, I think, I think we have responsibility, which to me is a little bit stronger of a mandate as far as what it means to honor.
And I just, I don't want to lose this treasure, right?
I think it's really important.
So thank you.
We don't want to lose it either.
And you've kind of given me kind of an excellent opening to say that we may be looking to the city to help us with that, being able to, she's laughing at me, right?
To look at when we come to a decision and we're the right place for all of these stories to resign and build, we may be coming to you to help us support that.
Fantastic.
I was anticipating that, and I know that some of the funding that this project has received was through the Department of Neighborhoods in the past, even though the chair of the council's budget committee as well as the chair with oversight of neighborhoods left.
I grabbed her on the way out and said, I'm very interested to figure out how we could address what I perceive as a shortfall in being able to realize this vision coming out from some of the changes around the Department of Neighborhoods funding policies.
So, thanks for highlighting that as well.
Yes, let's keep talking.
Yes, in Council Member Bagshaw's interest in talking as well.
I just have one comment to add to Rosette's amazing discovery and non-manipulative narration to keep these stories authentic in that they make an excellent basis for our young people to go back and understand what the artwork means, what the older people who've experienced the actual epidemic, what they actually felt.
as they were going through it and as they were recounting it for them.
So the educational component of these stories are in and of themselves.
And Rosette is to be congratulated for preserving that authentic nature of the stories.
Thank you.
Closing remarks?
I just want to say that the AIDS Memorial Pathway, our name was very specific, and using the word pathway not only was very literal in terms of identifying that it's a large physical area that people will be able to walk around and experience, all the different artworks and stories that'll be accessible to them, but it's very symbolic, and we take that to heart, where it's a path for us to look back and see what we've experienced, to take stock of where we are now, and to look ahead for a better future, and using what we have gained from our ancestors and our loved ones in the past to move to a better future.
There's so much vision here, I don't even know where to start in thanking folks.
It's just a room and an effort full of vision from every corner and support.
There's some folks in the audience, too, that deserve recognition.
We've got people from DON here and from the arts office, as well as parks.
and Sound Transit, so a shout out to them.
Also want to again thank the Arts Office and Director Engstrom in particular for the able steering of this effort and again, the leadership of Councilmember Juarez in knowing that an IDT was so critical to the kind of support that the community needed to realize this vision.
I'm really grateful for so many folks.
I do have public comment, but it doesn't look like anybody has signed up.
If anybody has changed their mind and wants to speak, they're welcome to join us at the mic.
All right.
Thanks for coming down.
Hello.
Hi, my name is Manuel Benegas from the Seattle LGBTQ Commission.
I would just like to thank everybody who's at the table for getting this project almost done.
In about 12 months, we should have a finalized AIDS Memorial Pathway.
So around this time that the pathway was being legislated in 2015, I received the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship, which is a scholarship for young people living with HIV based at the San Francisco AIDS Memorial Grove, which is the National AIDS Memorial Grove.
And just one point from the aims, so the aims were to create a physical space and to share stories and provide a call to action, and that still wasn't discussed fully at this meeting, but just an idea.
If we can figure out how we can use that vent from the, It was slide...
Are you talking about the slide 14, the event tower south wall?
If somehow we can get those deaths that were discussed today, those 3,200 and some deaths from that period, if we can get those kind of symbolized on that tower south wall and then use the augmented virtual reality to see like the present day face of the epidemic, Yes, granted, if over 50, those people living with HIV 50 years or older comprise of 49% of the people living with HIV in this area.
But if you expand that to the age 40 and above, then that's 75% of people living with HIV.
So it definitely, when we see the national statistics, over a quarter of new infections are young and youth and young adults.
So perhaps it's a new face in 2019, 2020.
That helps make the connection and underscoring the call to action.
Thank you, Manuel.
There are no further comments.
Co-chair Morris, you want to take us, close us down, take us away?
Yes, thank you.
Isn't that what Council President says?
Bring it home or whatever, some baseball analogy, football thing, I don't know.
I never understand what that means.
In any country we have a closing ceremony, so, well, I'll leave it at that.
It's like what Council Member Herbold just said.
There's so much here, but I want to kind of loop back and end it in a good way, that what we're doing here just with AMP is just one piece of history.
And we know that art reflects life, it restricts our history, our stories, our struggles, but it also reflects our beauty.
And when you were speaking, I was getting emotional because we had the same type of emotion when we did our whole committee on missing murdered indigenous women, and people had to stand up and we talk about those stories.
And you're right, the room does change.
And you are physically and emotionally and intellectually absolutely correct that you did more than feel it at a molecular level.
It will change you and has changed you at a DNA level.
And as a Native person, as I was sharing earlier, I know what that feels like.
But I also know the healing piece of resiliency.
So the flip side of trauma is resiliency, and resiliency means in our community, and it should be everywhere, is telling our stories, hearing each other like you were sharing, but basically telling the truth.
And in this country, in this city, in this world, sometimes people don't want to hear the truth, that some people's lives mattered more.
But that is the past, and going forward, whether at this table, and Council Member Herbold is well aware of this, You know, we are on the legislative branch, and we try to listen to the people and make the changes that reflect what are the priorities in our community about whose lives matter, where people live, all those things.
But at the end of the day, when you speak that kind of truth and you tell us what we need to do, you're telling not just us, you're telling everybody, but you're also releasing and honoring the people whose lives were lost to this disease, that we don't forget them.
I lived on Capitol Hill between 86 and 90, so when I was looking at those names, all of those people were born right around the time I was, and I remember, I think I remember a couple of them folks, and we all have people in our lives that we lost to this disease, and so I'm glad that people aren't just saying that HIV and AIDS is in the past, because it's not, because it is here, and when you put up brick and mortar, and when you, you know, like you have your, you're gonna have your computer technology phone thing, whatever that is, You know, that means that they're still here.
And in Indian country, and we believe that people don't die, they don't disappear, they don't go away.
They are still here because you're here talking about them.
Council Member Rasmussen handed around the folder with all the names, they're still here.
So I just want to honor that and thank you.
And I want to thank Councilmember Herboldt for staying and having this lunch and learn.
I hope that we have another opportunity to hear from you as you guys get further down the road in your fundraising.
I would like to know more.
As chair of Parks and the library, I work closely with Marcellus and obviously the folks at Seattle Center and obviously with the folks at Parks with Jesus Agarre.
So we'd like to just know more about what that looks like.
I'm one of those people, like I like to see a pie and I like to see, you know, the pie that shows how much your, what your goal is, where you're at, where you're at privately, And this is also a phenomenal example, like we saw with Friends of the Waterfront, when you have public-private partnerships.
I truly believe in that.
I don't think government can do everything, nor should they.
These are the things that government hands off to an organization who know their people and know their community, and just say, give me the check.
We know what we're doing.
And so, thank you so much for today.
Again, thank you, Council Member Rasmussen, for your leadership.
With that, it's 1.20, and we will be adjourned.
Thanks again, everybody, for participating.
Thank you.