For World AIDS Day 2022, School of Art and Staff Pride Network presents: The Farewell Symphony a new talk by Sam Moore.

About this event

In To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, Hervé Guibert tells the story of Haydn’s Symphony No. 45, known as the ‘Farewell’ Symphony, in which each musician blows a candle and walks away. The gesture, of exits incorporated into the symphony, is analogous to the gradual, inevitable, disappearance of queer people at the height of AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s as it ravaged communities. Those taken left behind bodies of work, from which we can try to understand what happened, and what – if anything – can be learned. The Farewell Symphony returns to this schism in queer history and tries to map out what comes after it. In the wake of another pandemic, the AIDS crisis of an earlier moment, takes on new resonances in the present. Using fragments of cultural memory, and the remnants of a ravaged community, The Farewell Symphony is a conversation with the ghosts that we’ve been left behind.

Sam is a writer, artist, and editor, whose work inflects new generation of artists and creative responses to the enduring political legacies of the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. Their work on queer culture and politics has been published by Frieze, the Financial Times, Hyperallergic, and other places. They are the author of All my teachers Died of AIDS (Pilot Press, 2020), and Long live the new flesh (Polari Press, 2022).

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The event was free to attend. A suggested donation of £2 per person (or your preferred amount) from event attendees would be much appreciated. All donations were/are made directly to Waverley Care, Scotland’s HIV, Hepatitis C, and sexual health charity (https://www.waverleycare.org/).

If you wish and are able to please donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/uoespn2022wad

The event was co-organised and kindly supported by the School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, and the Staff Pride Network (SPN).

You can get more info or contact SPN via:
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Blog https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/staffpridenetwork
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Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/staff-pride-network-12844691828