"After Silence is an important contribution to the history of AIDS activism. It tells the personal story of a key designer of a crucial political movement and demystifies how design decisions are made amidst political crisis. Compelling and potentially empowering to future visual activists."—Sarah Schulman, author of The Gentrification of the Mind
"Finkelstein was a founding member of the Silence = Death collective in New York at the onset of the AIDS crisis and gives a first-hand account of the origins and use of the Silence = Death graphic and tracks its use by the AIDS Action Committee, later known as ACT UP. He also offers an inside look at the collective Gran Fury and details many of the strategies and challenges that informed their most successful campaigns like
Read My Lips and
Kissing Doesn’t Kill. This book is essential for understanding the politics of resistance and the impact of ACT UP in building a movement.
After Silence will be an invaluable resource for artists and activists of all ages."— Ken Gonzales-Day, Professor of Art, Scripps College
"Through this generous, powerful act of bearing witness to the early days of the AIDS crisis, Avram Finkelstein—a central figure in the image strategies developed and deployed by ACT UP, and a profound cultural analyst himself—has delivered a crucial set of insights for the next generation of artist-activists who aspire to transform our political landscape. It is a witnessing told with heart and unflinching honesty, always eager to eschew the dominant narratives that seek to define this history, in favor of revealing the true complexity of social movements and their participants. We are in his debt."—Mark Read, founding member of The Illuminator Collective
"After the Holocaust, it was said for a time writers couldn't and didn't write. We, survivors/artists of the late-1980s and early-1990s AIDS era, have found our voices again. Avram Finkelstein has written an important, one-of-a-kind book about the history of AIDS through its images that the world needs and has waited for. It is a triumph."—Pamela Sneed, poet, author, performer, and Visiting Professor at Columbia University
"Finkelstein makes sure to emphasise the partiality of his story, while offering an admirably detailed and carefully drawn picture of the many affinities that made his story to stick out."
