David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978–79 [group]

Emily Roysdon: I was thinking a lot about how there has not been, for many years, an established queer cannon.

I was very interested in this question of identification and this kind of being able to cite and reference, and call to your idols, mentor, hero—any word that you wanna call that.

So I made David’s face and I kind of occupied that spot for a while. And similarly asked my friends. 

There were other people in my community who were willing to think about genderqueer politics. To think about what was our contemporary feminism. How we were aligning with AIDS activist artists and the intersectional movements around that. Those were my interests with the project. I was really thinking about what it means that an infamously diseased gay man is actually one of my primary identifications.

I've never imagined that, that David is my friend or would even wanna be my friend (laughs), in that way. I've never meant to speak for him, just to show respect and to align myself with him and to pull forward his legacy—to enliven his legacy.