The exhibition looked rather shady from the start. I went with a group of friends to White Columns, and it took us a good ten minutes before we figured out where the front door was. We entered the place and saw white space. There were small chairs next to television screens, but no noise could be heard. Instead, there were headphones available from every “station” if you will, where a person can listen to what’s being said on the TV. I listened to a few, but the major problem with this is that there is no restart button. Each television showed an interview between some activist (I only figured out they were activists after I left the exhibit) and some reporter. Whatever I listened to, it was out of context, so I had no clue as to what they were talking about, what the backgrounds of the people in the video were, why they did what they did, and why I was wasting my time trying to understand all of it. It was nice seeing a hands-on exhibit, but everything felt so out of context that any message I would grab out of the place would be either diluted or misconstrued.
In addition to the headphones, there were rooms away from the central area that were empty except for pictures on the walls that resembled war propaganda. The images were extremely graphic; the first thing I saw in the room was a giant poster of a penis, and that caught me totally off-guard. The posters all displayed a sense of anger and rebellion against the government, and its choice to ignore those who were suffering from AIDS. The posters sent the message pretty well, but again, like the videos, there was virtually no backstory to them. It all felt out of context and out-of-touch, despite the poignance of the graphic images. I just wish that there was someone there to help us understand a little more about what the exhibit was trying to portray, so it’d be easier to relate to the exhibits. I don’t have anything against the posters themselves; it’s the presentation that makes an average visitor like me lost and confused.
