Round the World (67)

in 200 Days

ROUND THE WORLD

67 THE UK AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT, TATE MODERN, LONDON - 13 June 2025

The UK Aids Memorial Quilt on display at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall June 2025 Photograph: Neil Hall © EPA

‘People weep in its presence. It began as a simple act of remembrance dedicated to those who lost their lives to AIDS. Now this ever-growing patchwork of grave-plot-sized panels has taken on a new meaning as one of the most significant artworks in the past forty years.’ - Text Charlie Porter © The Guardian

Below from my memoir ‘Living and Loving in the age of Aids’ published in 2021 - amazon.co.uk/

One of the most powerful artistic responses to the pandemic harnesses the creativity of all those who lost loved ones to create what is known as the ‘NAMES Project, AIDS Memorial Quilt’. Begun in 1987 by a group led by AIDS activist Cleve Jones, this enormous quilt, the largest piece of community folk art in the world, is currently made up of over 94,000 panels, on each of which a single name lost to AIDS is stitched, together with personal items or messages relating to that person. One of the earliest entries is for Roger Gail Lyon, who died in 1983. Before his death, Roger testified in front of a US congressional committee, stating: ‘AIDS is not a political issue it’s a health issue. AIDS is not a gay issue it’s a human issue’. On the quilt panel celebrating the life of Roger, his friend Cindy McMullin, one of the project’s original volunteers, has stitched Roger’s plea: ‘I came here today to ask this nation with all its resources and compassion not to let my epitaph read that I died of red tape’. - © Text Derek Frost / Watkins Media 2021

See also my accompanying complimentary ‘Living and Loving in the age of Aids’ Picture Book - jndflife.com/publications-derek/

The US Aids Memorial Quilt on display in Washington DC, USA