I first saw a display of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt in October 2021. It was at the ExCel Centre in east London, the Quilt laid out on the floor, the lives of over 380 people commemorated, who had died from AIDS-related causes. Being in the presence of the Quilt was profound, devastating, and humbling.
I had known of the Quilt since its first days in the late ’80s, when I was a teenager, reading about it in the pages of magazines like i-D. The Quilt was the initiative of Cleve Jones, an American gay rights activist who wanted to commemorate those who had died from AIDS-related causes. At the time, many of those who died were not given funerals, either because their families had rejected them or because funeral homes refused to take their bodies.
By making a panel for the Quilt, loved ones could commemorate those they had lost, as well as add their voices to a growing public protest about the AIDS crisis and stigma around HIV. In the United States, the Quilt became so big, it could fill the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The UK Quilt is the initiative of Alistair Hume, an activist from Edinburgh who met Jones in San Francisco in the late ’80s. On his return home, Hume started a UK chapter of the project, following the same guidelines: each panel is 6 feet by 3 feet, the size of an average grave plot. These panels are then formed into 12 foot by 12 foot blocks with no hierarchy to their layout: Famous names are placed among those not in the public eye.
In the mid-’90s, it became possible to live a full life with HIV because of the introduction of medical treatments. Life changed, people stopped dying in such vast numbers, and the UK chapter of the Quilt project closed. The Quilt was placed in storage for many years, until, in 2014, a partnership of volunteers from HIV charities got together to ensure its conservation, to bring the Quilt back into the public eye, to make sure its message is not forgotten.
It was at one of the partnerships’ displays in 2021 that I first saw the Quilt. It is immense and overwhelming, the scale of death and loss shocking. And yet, it is also personal, individual, intimate, magnetic, heart-breaking, and love-filled. “Malcolm,” reads one panel, “I wish that I had known you longer,” the letters simple, with two love hearts. Another is simply sewn with the name “Andrew” and the dates 1971-1993: He was 23 when he died. “I miss you so much,” it says at the end of the panel.
Often there is anger and rage at the homophobia and bigotry of the time. One panel was made, then covered over. A note attached reads: “This panel was made by a friend for a friend. The parents do not want this panel shown anywhere. The stigma still exists—until this changes the panel will remain covered. A red ribbon is not enough. The Quilt is not enough. What will it take? Attitudes must change!” The panel remains covered.
That day with the Quilt in 2021, I stayed and stayed, going back to look at different panels again, finding something about someone that I’d missed. At the time, I was 18 months into writing a novel about the AIDS crisis, Nova Scotia House. The novel is set in the present day, with its lead character Johnny remembering back to the early ’90s with his partner Jerry, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1995. At some point, the idea logged: Maybe I could include the Quilt in the novel.
In January 2024, I first contacted the Quilt partnership, asking permission to use images of the Quilt in the novel. They were immediately kind and supportive, and allowed me to reproduce images of eight Quilt panels in the novel as a sudden break in the text.
We got talking, and I said I’d like to help the partnership make the Quilt more widely seen. In July 2024, I just thought, let’s go for it. I sent an email to Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate museum, asking: would you consider displaying the Quilt in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern?
I also emailed Catherine Wood, director of programing at Tate Modern, and the curator Fiontán Moran, whose Leigh Bowery show at Tate Modern has been such a blockbuster. Their response was swift. By the first week of September, we’d met, and the display was agreed in principle. It was that simple.
Since, there have been months of planning and hard work. And now, this week, the Quilt finally arrives in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. It is the largest-ever display of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, and the first time it has ever been shown in an art institution. Cleve Jones, the founder of the Quilt, is traveling from the United States to see the display. The Quilt is now the largest ever community art project in the world—and it continues to grow. New panels will be added to the Quilt during the display. Workshops will be held on how to make a panel.
And then there’s something else. We announced the Quilt display at the beginning of April. A couple of days later, I was DM-ed by a friend, Martin Cohen. He said that, in 1994, he and some friends had filmed a documentary of the Quilt display in Hyde Park. They offered it to TV channels, but no one would take it. The documentary was screened once, in private. Then it was lost.
One of its makers was Zowie Broach, who is now head of fashion at the Royal College of Art. By total chance, just after the announcement of the Quilt, Zowie found in her storage the documentary on an old VHS tape. The film, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, is truly extraordinary, a 50-minute documentary filmed over two days of the Hyde Park display. No footage of the display was previously known to exist.
On the first day, it rained, the Quilt shown under cover, the names of the dead read out. Among those reading is Michael Hutchence, the singer from INXS, there to commemorate a friend. He is interviewed for the film, as is Alistair Hume. The second day, no rain. The Quilt could be out in the air. In the film, the designer Rifat Ozbek is interviewed, as is Boy George. Neneh Cherry is interviewed about her friend Ray Petri, the stylist, alongside Judy Blame. Also interviewed are panel makers: friends, family, lovers of those who had died.
Things moved fast. We contacted the Tate to let them know of the film’s existence. The film will now be shown hourly, for free, at Tate Modern in the cinema space just up from the Turbine Hall. It is an extraordinary moment, during Pride month, for this public institution to be giving space to the Quilt, and to the film. There is no more iconic location than the Turbine Hall. The power of its message, being in this space, will be profound.
For many who lived through those times, it will be a chance to remember and reflect. For those only born in the 21st century, the Quilt is an unprecedented chance to connect with the horror, the sadness, the pain, and the undefeatable love of those devastating years during the AIDS crisis. Hopefully the display will bring HIV and AIDS back into the public consciousness, at a time when financial aid and research funding is being cut by the US government, and those living with HIV still face stigma.
Hopefully, too, we can begin a conversation about the future of the Quilt, and how this vital social document can be preserved for generations to come.
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will be in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern from June 12 – 16; the documentary film “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” will be screened hourly for free in the Starr Cinema of Tate Modern from June 12 – 15. Charlie Porter’s novel “Nova Scotia House” is now available in all good bookstores. To learn more about the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, please visit aidsquiltuk.org
