Siobhán Lanigan started working on the pioneering HIV therapy centre London Lighthouse in 1992, after the AIDS-related loss of life of her housemate, the musician and actor David Dipnall. ‘He died inside six months of his prognosis. He was solely 24,’ she tells me. ‘You’ll be able to think about what that was like.’ On the centre, she frequently sat in on quilt-making workshops, although it wasn’t till 2013 that she noticed the finished UK AIDS Memorial Quilt – languishing in a cabinet at George Home Belief in Manchester, the place, untouched for a few years, it had begun to deteriorate.
When the Quilt is specified by the Turbine Corridor at Tate Fashionable, London, this week, it’ll mark the primary time it has been displayed in its entirety at one of many UK’s flagship cultural establishments. Comprising 42 quilts and 23 particular person panels, the Quilt types a robust tribute to almost 400 UK residents misplaced to AIDS-related sicknesses, hand-stitched by their buddies, lovers, communities and, sometimes, relations. For the numerous 1000’s of people that have contributed to the Quilt, this show is a big milestone, however for an object so integral – and so deeply treasured – to the historical past of HIV/AIDS within the UK, it’s galling to be taught of its precarious previous, to not point out its unsure future.
Scottish LGBTQ+ activist Alastair Hume first conceived of it in 1989, after seeing the US Quilt in San Francisco and assembly its originator, Cleve Jones. Again in Edinburgh, Hume arrange a UK chapter to obtain and sew collectively the panels into their distinctive 182 × 91 cm format, chosen to replicate the scale of a typical grave plot. After the invention of efficient antiretrovirals in 1995, the Quilt was positioned in storage, the place it remained for practically 20 years. It was solely when Lanigan and her colleagues sounded the alarm in 2013 {that a} partnership of seven HIV charities got here collectively to protect it – and to start accepting new panels as soon as extra.
Amongst its current additions is a panel made by Keith Heywood for his accomplice, Derek St Louis, who handed away in 1990. ‘Peckham is the place Derek arrived from the Caribbean in 1966 – and it’s additionally very a lot how I keep in mind him: a Peckham boy,’ he says, explaining the flag of Dominica and the Peckham tube station roundel he has painted on his design. Accomplished in 2023, St Louis’s panel joins these remembering the likes of activist Mark Ashton, actor Ian Charleson and singer Freddie Mercury. ‘Derek was an extrovert – and I all the time knew he would have appreciated to be a part of the Quilt.’
At Tate, guests may have the prospect to look at carefully the handwritten notes, pictures and scraps of clothes taped to every panel. However, wanting down on the Quilt from the Turbine Corridor Bridge will underscore the size of the loss. ‘It speaks very softly of a number of totally different lives,’ says Lanigan. ‘However, if you see all of them collectively as an entire, it speaks loudly about the place we had been then.’ A beforehand unseen documentary by Peter Martin, There Is a Gentle That By no means Goes Out (1994), that includes uncommon footage from the Quilt’s public unveiling at Hyde Park Nook in June 1994, will likely be screened alongside within the Starr Cinema.
Welcome although this show is, Lanigan doesn’t intend for the Quilt to enter Tate’s everlasting assortment, the place its panels is perhaps conserved but in addition faraway from public show for lengthy intervals. Like its bigger, better-funded US counterpart, she envisions the UK Quilt as a residing memorial: one which circulates across the nation, touching down in group centres, colleges and different public areas, the place it could actually encourage consciousness, remembrance and protest.
For that to occur, the Quilt wants funding – urgently – to restore these components the place the material is worn or the ink has pale, although Lanigan believes extra have to be executed to safeguard its future. ‘It wants its personal premises, with a room sufficiently big to open the panels and work on them for conservation,’ she explains. Whereas a everlasting London AIDS memorial designed by artist Anya Gallaccio is because of be unveiled in 2027, the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt has, for greater than 4 many years, fulfilled that function – an unofficial nationwide monument, crafted and cared for by the communities most impacted by the epidemic. Securing it a devoted residence, the place its panels might be preserved and displayed for future generations, is as important as it’s lengthy overdue. ‘It solely wants Elton John to determine he desires to take care of it,’ Lanigan provides.
Till then, the Quilt will likely be boxed up after its show at Tate and returned to its present residence at Constructive East, London, the place it’s cared for by a small however dedicated staff of volunteers and conservators, with Lanigan on the helm. She expects new panels will arrive within the wake of the show, bringing with them contemporary tales from an epidemic that’s removed from over. ‘Possibly someday there will likely be a panel for David,’ she muses. ‘Although it feels to me like all of the work I do across the Quilt is for him.’
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will likely be on show at Tate Fashionable 12–16 June. There may be an accompanying programme of occasions, together with readings, discussions and workshops.
Fundamental picture courtesy: UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership
