Portals of Remembrance Community Imagination Workshop

On July 12, the New York City AIDS Memorial and Kinfolk Tech partnered for a Community Imagination Workshop at the LGBT Community Center. Participants were invited to dream with the archives to explore the under-told histories of LGBTQ+ communities, and to imagine expansive futures through collaging and zine-making using archival materials.

This workshop was presented as part of Portals of Remembrance (on view through spring 2026), a new exhibition featuring three monuments created by four renowned contemporary artists. The exhibition honors and illuminates the stories of underrepresented figures within the HIV/AIDS movement through three virtual monuments created by Derek Fordjour, Egyptt LaBeija, Tourmaline, and Jacolby Satterwhite, reimagining the New York City AIDS Memorial as a dynamic site of memory and empowerment.

This program was presented as part of the Third Annual West Side Fest. Organized by the West Side Cultural Network—a group of 20 museums, parks, performing arts centers, and cultural institutions located within a half-mile portion of historic New York—West Side Fest is an annual weekend of free admission, special indoor and outdoor programming, crafts for kids, artmaking for all ages, and more to welcome all New Yorkers to the culturally vibrant western edge of Manhattan. For more information, visit westsidefest.nyc.