We came to Let The Record Show through our relationship with Patrick O’Connell (first director of Visual AIDS), and wanted to share his story of the (red) Ribbon Project. Patrick had not been approached about his work during the AIDS crisis and felt that younger generations didn’t want to know about what was lost during those years or how artists had profoundly shaped the political culture of that time. Indeed he felt that younger generations wanted to forget that AIDS was still continuing to ravish communties. We were fascinated by how a group of artists in dire circumstances could create an iconic symbol. How was that symbol, against all odds, able to spread compassion across the world? Patrick led us to artists who worked collectively, creating ground breaking iconic projects around AIDS. Artists led us to other artists of that time creating equally powerful work. They all said the same thing that Patrick had told us, that no one had asked them about their experience of that time. Avoiding talking heads and a narrator, we set out with the ambition to film artists in their homes and create interviews that could become a collective story. Patrick didn’t just give us that story, he opened up a world to us, in a way only he could.