99% Invisible - 173- Awareness

Episode Date: July 22, 2015

By the late 1980s, AIDS had been in the United States for almost a decade. AIDS had be the number one killer of young men in New York City, then of young men in the country, then of young men … Continue reading →

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. By the late 1980s, AIDS had been in the US for almost a decade. If you look through timelines from this period, you see the records of 100 people dead, 1,000 people dead, a million people dead. AIDS becomes the number one killer of young men in New York City, then of young men in the country, then of young men and women in the country. But what you don't see much of in the late 80s is public acknowledgement of AIDS. That's reporter Audrey Quinn.

Millions of people were dying of this mysterious new disease, but there was so much stigma against talking about it. You kind of felt like you were living in a war zone and there was no reporting. It was a bizzara world. That's Patrick O'Connell. He was really involved with him in Hattenart scene in the late 80s. A community where it could be hard to think about anything but the AIDS crisis. We would spend days going to St. Vincent to visit someone,

going to Redden's for a funeral and then getting on your answering machine, a message of somebody flipping out because they've just been told that they're going to be sick, or are sick. So Patrick and a group of other artists turned their focus to AIDS. Yeah, why were you making art in response to AIDS? Actually, I don't know his death that question. Why would you not be? response dates.

In 1988, O'Connell and his collaborators began calling their collective visual aids. They held public events to raise aids awareness. There were slideshows, gallery shows. But of all the work they did, the thing that had the biggest effect was a simple little symbol. That, at the time, was a novel concept. The AIDS Awareness Ribbon. It all started one night in the spring of 1991. The visual aid artist caucus held a meeting in search of a symbol. They wanted something that could be created that could

be put out there for people to wear. That's Mark Hoppe, he's a costume designer and was at that meeting. He's now director of costumes for the New York City Ballet. Back then, he and friends had been doing a lot of driving around upstate New York. This was at the time of the Persian Gulf War. We started to see, of course, at the time, yellow ribbons that were tied around trees, which is, you know, in reference to that song for Service Men. You know, we just were like, hmm, you know, why couldn't we do something like that for AIDS? And we talked about, you know, would it really be around a tree Why couldn't we do something like that for AIDS?

And we talked about, you know, would it really be around a tree? And that just seemed a little like, I don't know, not right. Then it became like, oh, maybe not around the tree, but maybe folded with a pin on your lapel. Then it was time to pick a color. In the, the meaning it also came about

that it was like, yes, it should be red because it represents blood. It was just so obviously right. A local ribbon supplier donated schools of half inch wide red, grograin ribbon. Grograins that ribbed ribbon you might have worn around your ponytail growing up. And we started just in these meetings like folding them and doing different things with them. And first it just started out just like folding it in half. But then it came to actually folding it in that way we now know it so well with the safety pin.

The looped inverted V shape. We were on the streets of the city within ten weeks or something with them. Patrick O'Connell again. By this time he was director of VisualAids. And at this point the Red Ribbons were essentially an art project. The VisualAids artists caucus members held what they called Ribbon Bees. Think like a quilting bee, a bunch of people gathered to work. They'd hand cut, fold, and pin thousands of ribbons. I'll just a hand out for free.

In mid-May, I have this very foolish idea that we should be on the Tony Awards. We've left us approximately two weeks to achieve this. I'll convince everybody that this was not going to be disruptive, but rather something they should embrace. A number of visual aids members had Broadway connections. They haggled with the organizers of the Tony Awards and coaxed celebrity dressers into pinning the ribbons on their clients before the ceremony. And they got to work making new ribbons. Mark Hoppe's studio was mad, it was fabulous. We were distributing the more typically sized ribbons, but we thought,

oh, we're going to ruin everybody's dress and dinner jacket. So let's make them big and specific for the presenters. So the camera could like really capture them. The night of the show came June 7th, 1991. That night we all kind of went home and everybody was crossing their fingers because we didn't know. They didn't know if anyone would actually wear the ribbons. I mean, we handed all this stuff out and all these water supervisors and all these treasures are new.

They said, sure, we'll see what we can do. Promise much, but we'll try. Tonight, live from the Minskov theater on Broadway the 1991 Tony Awards hosted by this year's Academy Award winner, a former Tony Award winner, Mr. Jeremy Irons. And Jeremy Irons walked out with a red ribbon on his lapel. The fact that he walked out wearing it was the most brilliant thing. I mean, I'm emotional and now because it was like, wow, you know, it worked. I found the full show on YouTube. Jeremy Earns is so handsome, the slick back hair and a big red ribbon on the left lapel at his black

tux. The first winner of the night's this little girl, Daisy Egan, star of the secret garden. The first winner of the night's this little girl, Daisy Egan, star of the secret garden. I don't think I can talk. She's got this poofy sleeve black and white dress on, and a little red ribbon on her chest. Thank you. Then there's Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey lost in Yandex. He goes up to accept his award with a more medium-sized red ribbon. Thank you very much.

Next you see Penn and Teller wearing big red ribbons. By the end of the show I was paying more attention to the presenters not wearing ribbons, totally judging them for missing the memo. What you also noticed watching the Tonys is how new the awareness ribbon was. Everyone was wearing them in different ways. Some were looped, some were folded in sharp angles. Some of the ribbons have their ends spread wide like wings. But here's the crucial thing. No one explained the ribbons on air. Rumor has it the network

threatened to go to commercial break if they did. Turns out this degree of mystery provided some incredibly good press. The one thing that was kind of exciting is the next day there was a little blurb in the newspaper that was like what was that red ribbon and it was everywhere at the Tony Awards. There was two days of print media wondering what this red ribbon was. So you know that really I think for us and for the red ribbon itself was just the point where it just exploded. Within days, the ribbon was stopping traffic.

We ran into this seemingly very successful businessman and his wife on the streets and he saw us wearing our ribbon and he was like, I saw that. I saw that on the Tony's, and he's like, that's about AIDS, isn't it? Isn't it? That's about AIDS, because no one actually said it. And I said, well, yes. And he's like, how do you get when I said,

well, actually, we made them, it's our project. Anyway, he like peeled off $100 bill and gave it to us. When they found out what it was for, I think a lot of people really got on board and just were like, I need to start wearing a red ribbon. And it just really pushed it over into being kind of almost a, you know, just a much bigger symbol than it ever had been. And I think that we ever really thought it might be so quickly. The next stop for the ribbon was the Emmys, then the Oscars and the Grammy Awards, and

the members of VisualAids continue to gather to make them. Cut, fold, and pin. We would be watching on TV, famous people wear our ribbons while we sat in the law huffed making ribbons together. Very meta, as they now say. In those days we said it would have been very pomem-o. School groups and church groups started contacting the visual aid artists, asking how they could start

their own ribbon project. And it just becomes this phenomenon, which we were surprised by. When did it start to feel like the ribbon was out of your hands? Like it was no longer visually seen? Well, probably by the end of 92, in terms of the introduction of like, you know, the bejeweled leathering back, crystal pave, red ribbon, et cetera. There were red ribbon diamond necklaces, red ribbon Christmas ornaments, red ribbon t-shirts.

There were some of us that thought that visual aids should trademark it. And so that any time it's used, the money had to come back to visual aids. One of the reasons we didn't was that it would not have been embraced so willingly and so universally if we had. If everyone had to come and say, may I have permission to do this, it would have been in contrast to

the spirit of the artwork. So yeah, I wish visual aids had a nickel for every ribbon petled in the world or ribbon object. Yes, that's after the fact. The Ribbon's Creators felt a backlash from other AIDS activists. At first, just wearing the ribbon felt like a radical act, publicly acknowledging that AIDS existed, that people were suffering, that you cared. But as the ribbon became more ubiquitous, some activists called wearing it, and easy out, a way to look like you cared about people with AIDS without actually doing anything to help people with AIDS.

Basically the same criticisms that met the Livestrong bracelet and the Ice Bucket Challenge. But Mark Hopple says that's okay. What we wanted to do was create something that a mother in Michigan could wear on the lapel of her blouse. And you know, maybe her son was living in New York and living with AIDS and she wanted to do something. I think it was just, it was also a symbol that we created that somebody could wear and somebody might go up to them

and say, what is that? Why are you wearing that red ribbon? And hopefully that person would say, here's why. The ribbon was doing its job. People were talking about AIDS. The New York Times declared 1992 the year of the ribbon. President Clinton set up the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, the National Institute of Health expanded its AIDS research, and the government funded the National HIV Epidemiology

Study. Over time, the awareness ribbon has gotten so much attention for AIDS that more than 200 other causes by our last count now use a looped Awareness Ribbon as their symbol. Well it's interesting that, almost 25 years later, it's everywhere now in everybody's face and in different colors. There's the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness, an indigo ribbon for bullying awareness, a teal ribbon for anxiety disorder awareness.

Actually, the teal ribbon is also used for ovarian cancer awareness, threat syndrome awareness, tsunami victim awareness. There are more causes that want ribbons than there are colors of ribbon. And the ribbons ubiquity eventually reached the point of parity. When the band Death Cab procuredi wore light blue ribbons at the Grammys in 2009, people wondered, was it about secondhand smoke awareness or Adreno cortical carcinoma awareness?

It turns out Death Cab procuredi had started their own cause, auto-tune abuse awareness. Yeah. You know, on 7th Avenue, you'd call that a knockoff elsewhere. You'd call it a rip off. I think it's great that people took that simple little ribbon with a pin and made it their own, you know, and used it for whatever cause they were fighting. I'm totally fine with that and I think, you know, it's there for people to use. In whatever way they want to and however they want to get a message out. I think the thing that really captures my imagination when I look at it is that it's such a perfect form.

It's beautiful and economic in terms of its design and that is the best kind of design. It's beautiful and economic in terms of its design, and that is the best kind of design. That's Michelle Miller Fisher. She's a curatorial assistant at the architecture and design department at the Museum of Modern Art, the Momma. In this last month, she helped make the Red Aids ribbon

an official part of the museum's collection. She remembers first seeing the ribbon as a kid in England in the 90s. The very first time I saw it, I realized that advocacy and passion, even understanding it as a very young child, could be imbued in a very simple design. The Momma has in its collection one of the hand-cut visual aids ribbons pinned to an original ribbon project hand out explaining its meaning. I love the fact that I can see where someone has cut this, and so I wonder whether this was someone's like 50th ribbon of the day or 100th ribbon of the day.

The Momma plans to have the ribbon out on display in the next year. I will always think it's relevant. My cobble again. Because, you know, aids is still with us. It's still out there and we still have to be aware of it and we still have to raise money and we still have to fight it and we still have to care for people and so on and so forth. Now AIDS isn't the killer that it used to be, at least in the US, but that doesn't mean the disease is gone. The number of people living with HIV in the United States is now higher than ever before.

Patrick O'Connor also says he'll keep wearing his AIDS awareness ribbons. Back at his apartment, he showed me the ribbons in his wardrobe. Sure they're on stuff still. There must be 30 ribbons there I feel. Yeah, they're probably a heck of a hundred and there somewhere. He doesn't even take them off when he washes his shirts and just keeps them pinned on. Is there anything I haven't asked you about the ribbon? You don't need to ask? Well, you didn't ask if we had fun.

And we did. Bizarrely, we had fun. I'm telling you, fun. Give my regards to Broadway. Remember me to help square. Tell all the folks on 40 seconds, say that I will soon be there. Tell them that I'm yearning to mingle with the old times wrong. Give my regards to all Broadway and say that I'll be there along. Say hello to Deerone Coney High. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Audrey Quinn with Katie Mingle, Sam Greenspan,

Avery Trouffleman, and me Roman Mars. We are a project of KALW San Francisco and produced out of the offices of Arxan, an architecture and interiors firm in beautiful downtown Oakland, California. The inspiration for this story came from WHYWISE, the pulse where you can also hear Audrey's story about the history of the breast cancer ribbon will link to the pulse on our website. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. We're all on Twitter and you can follow me at Roman Mars if you want to watch me devolve over the week as my wife is away. We also have a Tumblr with cool stuff every single day, but more info on this story and

the entire 99PI catalog can be found at 99pr.org. Radio to be on. From PRX.