The MoMA Magazine Podcast

“My Friends Gave Me Their Love”: Friendship and Resistance During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part podcast series exploring New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s. 

In this final episode, Flash takes a quick trip north to Harlem, where Idris Mignott and Pamela Sneed discuss the impact of AIDS on Black and Brown folks in the city. Then, she concludes with a reflection on the state of AIDS today, calling upon the perspectives of a queer elder who lives through the crisis and a younger person who was born after its peak. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

“I’m Making Biscuits for a Funeral”: Life and Death During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part podcast series exploring New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s. 

In this penultimate episode, Flash concentrates on a single site: St. Vincent’s Hospital, which, in the 1980s, housed the first and largest AIDS ward on the East Coast. In conversation with friends Pamela Sneed, Idris Mignott, Agosto Machado, and Aldo Hernandez, Flash shares how this hospital touched their lives. She also introduces us to a new friend—someone with a different relationship to St. Vincent’s. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

“They Needed Help, and People Were Turning Their Backs”: Love and Loss During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part podcast series exploring New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s. 

For episode four, Flash wanders through memories of Christopher Street and the queer histories that took shape there. She’s joined by fellow artist Agosto Machado, as well as familiar friends Pamela Sneed and Idris Mignott, to discuss different places and spaces along the street. They share memories of the people they met on Christopher Street, and the ways love and loss shaped their lives during and after the AIDS crisis. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

“A Space Where We Felt Welcome”: Community and Mutual Aid During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part podcast series exploring New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s. 

Episode three looks at the ways people built community during the epidemic, and how these communities mobilized to spread knowledge, resources, and care. Flash is joined by friends Aldo Hernandez, Pamela Sneed, and Idris Mignott to discuss two organizations: the Clit Club and the Hetrick-Martin Institute. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

“I’m Laughing so I Don’t Cry”: Coming Together During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part series exploring New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s. 

Episode two reunites Flash with her longtime friend Aldo Hernandez. They discuss their involvement with ACT UP and two sites that helped shape their activism: the LGBT Center in Greenwich Village and Aldo’s apartment near Tompkins Square Park. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

“The History We Remember”: NYC During the AIDS Crisis

Join artist and photographer Lola Flash for a six-part series exploring the sites, sounds, and stories of New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s. In this first episode, Flash introduces the series and the people you’ll meet along the way. 

Learn more about Lola Flash, her work, and the stories shared in this project at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1222

Designing for Climate Change

A climate scientist and an architect discuss how design can be a force for positive environmental change.

“I certainly remember, as a child growing up in the UK, we had a lot more snow than we do recently,” says UK-based climate scientist Ed Hawkins in this month’s episode of the Magazine podcast. Hawkins’s work, which visualizes the globe’s warming temperatures over the last 160 years, is striking in more ways than one, showing us just how quickly and dramatically the environment has been changing.

But climate change is more than escalating temperatures. It has tangible effects on how people live, and architects like Marina Tabassum have been using design as a tool to address hazardous conditions like flooding and soil erosion. For this Earth Month edition of the Magazine Podcast, we’ll also hear from Tabassum about her collaboration with Bangladesh’s landless populations and her project Khudi Bari (tiny house).

Access a transcript of the conversation at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1212.

Frequency Gardens: This Room Feels Like a Hug

Listen to a teen-led conversation with DonChristian Jones, about building spaces for belonging and memory.

When artist DonChristian Jones started at MoMA as the inaugural Adobe Creative Resident, they created a vision for working with young people to share their stories about what art and community meant to them. In the summer of 2024, DonChristian—through their Residency at MoMA, along with the nonprofit they run, Public Assistant—and the Lower Eastside Girls Club collaborated on Frequency Gardens, a summer program and radio show.

Over the course of a month, eight teens learned how to record and edit audio, conduct live interviews, and tell their stories through art. Four of the teen participants interviewed DonChristian about their collaborative process and what it was like to hear themselves as part of the exhibition.

Read a transcript of the audio: https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1208

The Art of Making It Up as You Go

Hear from two artists and an educator about how they use improvisation to engage with art.

Improvisation informs all kinds of creative practice. But how does chance really play out in an artist’s work? And how might it inform their everyday lives?

Choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia and artist and musician Jazmin “Jazzy” Romero test these ideas in the performance Jacklean (in rehearsal). In this episode of the Magazine podcast, they discuss how chance operates in their work, what a performance score for improvisation looks like, and share more about their collaboration. Their story of friendship and innovation is bookended by anecdotes from Sarah Dinkelacker, an educator at MoMA who uses improvisation to help people engage with art. Tune in to hear more about improvisation as a tool for life—a way to make it up as you go and move through the world with others.

Access a transcript of the conversation at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1201

Can Loneliness Open the Door to Love?

The future of this complex emotion is still being written, but its history can offer interesting insights on our present day.

“ Everybody fundamentally wants to be loved…to feel like they belong,” says historian Fay Bound Alberti. “But many people don’t find that, or they think  about romantic love as the answer to all of their problems.” As a result, many of us end up feeling something else entirely: loneliness. Recent scientific research has described loneliness as a “modern epidemic,” an experience that can pose a threat to our health. While there is truth to these claims, they risk simplifying the complexity of this experience.

For this year’s Valentine’s Day episode of the Magazine podcast we speak to Professor Fay Bound Alberti, author of A Biography of Loneliness. She guides us through the history of this emotion—its roots in the modern era and the ways it has been depicted in the work of artists. The podcast also revisits last year’s conversation with Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo; alongside Professor Alberti, she offers strategies for reframing our perceptions of love and loneliness.

Access a transcript of the conversation at https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/1184