Don’t Forget to Remember

Watch a night of laughter and tears to mark the 30th anniversary of the landmark exhibition, Don’t Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS. 

Opening at the National Gallery in November 1994, Don’t Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS was the first exhibition about HIV/AIDS to be held at a national gallery anywhere in the world. Timely and brave, the exhibition has defined boldness for the National Gallery to this day.

Exhibition curator, Ted Gott, now Senior Curator, International Art, National Gallery of Victoria, and Australian artist William Yang reflect on the exhibition in conversation and consider what curatorial bravery means today.

William shares a slideshow of his photographs from the exhibition opening and perform a brief monologue of Allan from his stage performance Sadness, which explores grief at the loss of so many friends who died of AIDS related illness.

'When I re-read my diaries from the early 90s, I saw that I had been to more wakes than I had been to parties. I felt compelled to tell these stories of my friends, to unburden myself of the things that I have seen.

— William Yang

Don’t Forget to Remember in this intimate evening of conversation and performance in the James Fairfax Theatre.