AIDS Aktivizmi Bağlamında Yasın Politikleşmesi

Abstract

This study examines a political line of mourning that strives to include the mourning of those deemed unmournable in the public sphere. It challenges attempts to silence and marginalise mourners during the AIDS crisis that emerged in the 1980s. The AIDS crisis was met with silence and indifference by the political power as the virus was found in people who were socially marginalised in the sphere of otherness, especially gay men. The deaths of tens of thousands of people did not result in any change in the public sphere; as usual, deaths became inaudible and invisible in the public sphere controlled by political powers. In 1987, the establishment of the umbrella activist organisation ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) saw the emergence of groups previously excluded from society, who brought their practices of mourning and melancholy into the public sphere. This resulted in several interventions to address the crisis that had been absent for years in the public sphere. This study employs discourse analysis and semiotic analysis to examine the political funeral ceremonies of the umbrella organisation ACT-UP and the art productions of Gran Fury, the artistic production arm of the organisation. It considers how these ceremonies and productions exhibit the political potential of mourning and melancholy, and the ways in which they create change in the public sphere.