PEABODY — Eight panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt ― the largest community art project that honors the lives of those lost to HIV/AIDS ― are on display at City Hall, commemorating World AIDS Day and the 40 years since the first cases were reported in the U.S.
Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. invited the National AIDS Memorial, a San-Francisco-based organization that performs the duties of the quilt’s steward, to display it in Peabody this year.
“The City of Peabody is proud to display eight panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt leading up to World AIDS Day observances on Dec. 1,” said Bettencourt. “The quilt is a living memorial to those that died during the height of the AIDS pandemic, and it helps raise greater awareness about the story of AIDS, and prevention, treatments, and resources that are available.”
The panels of the quilt on display in the Wiggin Auditorium in City Hall were made by friends and family of those who died of AIDS. During the last four decades, more than 700,000 lives have been lost in the U.S. to HIV/AIDS, and there is still no cure for this condition.
The quilt represents powerful stories of activism, resilience, hope and remembrance and helps connect them to the issues persisting today, such as social injustice, health inequity, stigma, bigotry and the raging COVID-19 pandemic that took hundreds of thousands of lives across the country. Thousands of panels of the quilt are displayed throughout the U.S. and the world each year. These exhibitions raise greater awareness about prevention and treatments available for HIV as it continues to impact the lives of younger populations and communities of color, especially in the southern states of the U.S.
The first panels of the quilt were created almost 35 years ago during the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A longtime San Francisco gay rights activist Cleve Jones conceived the idea of the quilt in November of 1985, when organizing a march. He asked his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS, which they taped to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building at the end of the event. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt.
Jones created the first panel for the quilt in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman. In June of 1987, Jones teamed up with several other activists to formally organize the NAMES Project Foundation.
The public responded to the quilt immediately. People from the cities most affected by AIDS — Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — sent panels to the San Francisco organization.
Each panel design is either vertical or horizontal and 3 feet by 6 feet ― the size of a grave site. Creators are encouraged to express themselves in any way through paint or fine needlework, iron-on transfers, handmade appliques, or spray paint on a sheet.
The panels include the name of the person who is being commemorated, as well as any additional information such as the dates of birth and death, hometown, special talents and so on. One panel is usually dedicated to one individual, although exceptions are made for siblings or spouses.
Some items used on panels include photographs; afghans; buttons; clothing items like jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes; car keys; wedding rings; ashes and more.
When a new panel arrives at the national headquarters of the National AIDS Memorial in the San Francisco Bay Area, it is logged and examined for durability. Some panels require hemming, reinforcement or minor repairs. Then eight panels are grouped geographically by region or by theme or appearance and sewn together to form a 12-foot square, usually referred to as either a “12-by-12” or “block.”
Today, the quilt consists of 50,000 individually-sewn panels from every U.S. state and 28 countries with the names of more than 110,000 people. It weighs about 54 tons.
In 1989, the quilt was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its global impact.
The entire quilt can be viewed online at www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt with an option to search for names on it.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at City Hall until Wednesday, Dec.1. The exhibition is free to the public. City Hall hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Friday (City Hall is closed Nov. 25 and Nov. 26.)