Step inside the life and legacy of a New York artist who’s spent 50 years turning loss into living shrines by preserving the forgotten stories of the queer underground. In this intimate short documentary, Machado invites us into his home and creative process with his charismatic blend of fabulous humor and vulnerability.
From the counterculture of the 1960s to today, Agosto Machado has carried legacies of New Yorkers, gathering newspaper clippings, photographs, posters and ashes in shopping bags of saved history. From these, he memorializes friends and icons like Candy Darling, Jack Smith, Ellen Stewart, Sylvia Rivera, and Marsha P. Johnson, community members lost too soon. His work is a tribute to community, chosen family, and the afterlife of art.
“I prepaid my cremation. And if you pay in cash, now this is a clue, you get a discount… and I celebrate that I will one day see them in spirit form.” — Agosto Machado