The William Way LGBT Community Center and artist/entrepreneur Alex Stadler have teamed up to collaborate on a special exhibition and public memorial service for those lost in the early AIDS pandemic in the city of Philadelphia. Gone and For Ever, part of Remembrance, will remember and honor those who died in our region dating back to the early 1980s. Stadler and collaborating artists have created a one-of-a-kind artist-made exhibition to be displayed at the Center (1315 Spruce Street) during Philly Gay Pride Month, from June 21-24, leading up to the piece’s culminating public memorial on June 25.

Following a musical and spoken memorial ceremony at the Center, the audience will join a street procession, with the urns carried to The Church of Saint Luke & The Epiphany, including blessings over the memories of these people by a multi-denominational group of faith leaders led by Reverend Jeffery Haskins. The memorial ceremony will be livestreamed for those not able to be inside in person for the event. For more information on Gone and For Ever, please visit www.waygay.org/remembrance and on social media at @alexstadlerartwork. For more about William Way LGBT Community Center, please visit www.waygay.org and @waygayphilly.

In September 1981, Philadelphia identified its first documented case of what became known as AIDS. Memories of the terror and bravery of the early years of the crisis have faded, and indeed are difficult to imagine for those who did not experience them. Fear and stigma became their own pandemic, and led to abandonment of some – by friends, family and society at large – during their dying and in their deaths. Amidst the uncertainty and fear of contagion that were so prevalent, only a few Philadelphia area funeral directors were willing to accept the bodies of those lost to AIDS, and to this day, some ashes remain unclaimed.

Artist/entrepreneur Alex Stadler conceived of a collaborative artist-made funeral that would remember and honor individuals who were in some way abandoned in their dying or death. He imagined structures and art forms associated with memorial traditions – elegies, music, shrouds, mourning and processional costume, funeral urns. This vision, Gone and For Ever, is one part of a broader initiative coordinated by William Way LGBT Community Center and its John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives and is supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Additional Remembrance components include an expanded archive of oral histories from that time, building from the project’s listening tour, and an original play inspired by the oral histories.