Mohawk Valley Community College and the National AIDS Memorial are partnering to bring panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Utica as part of World AIDS Day observances on Dec. 1, 2021.
Panels of The Quilt will be on display from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, Nov. 29-Dec. 3, in the lobby of Payne Hall at MVCC’s Utica Campus, 1101 Sherman Drive. This free display of The Quilt, which is being hosted by MVCC’s LGBTQ+ Committee and sponsored by MVCC’s Student Congress, will include panels honoring local individuals. MVCC also will host a “World AIDS Day” virtual talk at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, featuring Hunter Reynolds, visual artist and AIDS activist who uses photography, performances, and installations to express his experience as an HIV-positive gay man living in the age of AIDS. The virtual talk will be shown in Payne Hall room 102, and those interested in watching can also view the talk on Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/94670728956).
This year marks 40 years since the first cases of AIDS were reported in the United States. During that four-decade span, more than 700,000 lives have been lost in this country to HIV/AIDS, and there still is no cure. Today, HIV is on the rise, particularly among young people, communities of color and in southern states. Quilt displays are used to raise greater awareness about the story of AIDS, and prevention, treatments, and resources available within the community.
The Quilt was created nearly 35 years ago during the darkest days of the AIDS pandemic by gay rights activist Cleve Jones. While planning a march in 1985, he was devastated by the thousands of lives that had been lost to AIDS in San Francisco and asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died. Jones and others stood on ladders taping these placards to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt, and inspired by this sight, Jones and friends made plans for a larger memorial. In 1987, a group of strangers began gathering in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and later that year, nearly 2,000 of its panels were displayed on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Today, the Quilt has grown to more than 50,000 panels, with more than 110,000 names stitched within its fabric. It weighs 54 tons, stretches more than 50 miles in length, and is the largest community-arts project in the world. The Quilt is now part of the National AIDS Memorial, which oversees its preservation, care, storytelling programs, and community displays. The Quilt can be viewed in its entirety and people can search for names on the Quilt at www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt.