A blue-grey fabric is spread neatly on the floor. Bordered at its top and bottom by a repeating pattern depicting cats, the fabric is crowded with cartoon-ish elephants; a big, arrow-spiked heart; appliqué letters; more cats; and over 50 hand-written messages. Loved loving you. See you in the world of butterflys. Dear Keith, we won’t need the telephone to chat anymore will we. This is the bottom left-corner of AIDS Quilt 4, created in memory of Keith McFarlane who lost his life to AIDS. On display in the Tate Modern, the 42 quilts and 23 individual panels that make up the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will be laid across the floor of the Turbine Hall from 12th – 16th June. This, according to the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership’s Siobhán Lanigan, is “the largest showing of the UK Quilt in its history.”
Each quilt is roughly the size of a bedroom with each panel, made in memory of someone who has died as a result of AIDS, being 3 by 6 foot – as large as a single bed, big enough to mark a grave. You will always be with me Keith, now and always. Contiguous, the 42 quilts could stretch the length of the hall; instead, they are broken into three lines that cover half of the concrete floor. This layout mirrors previous public displays of the quilt. Viewed from above, the scale of loss is devastating. At ground-level, it is worse: the narrow lines between the quilts force the viewers into a slow procession gathering personalised fragments of love and grief. Beautiful, Brother, Bastard, Beloved, Bereft.
On Saturday 14th June, the display was accompanied by name readings, two recitations by Bakita Kasadha of her poem ‘The Years Flow Through’, and performances from the London Gay Men’s Chorus. What in other settings may have been cloying, including a rendition of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’, left me with tears in my eyes. As names were read, the vast – almost numbing – sense of loss broke into the personal with readers adding prefixes such as ‘and my dear friend’ as their voices wavered. Thirty years on from the founding of the UK chapter of the quilt and the grief is still tangible – a profound reminder of the lives that continue to be lost to HIV and AIDS. Who will I argue with now my dear?!
Amongst those names in the 42 quilts and 23 panels, there were also a significant portion of people who could not be named. One panel in the right-hand corner of AIDS Quilt 23 explains: “This Panel was made by Friend for a Friend. / The Parents do not want this panel shown anywhere. / The Stigma still exists – / Until this changes this panel will remain covered.” A white sheet acts as a temporary pall for the original panel. Then and now the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS masks and isolates.
Keep us right, Keith. So that we do this right. Formed in 2014, the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership has done vital work in conserving and displaying the quilt. By housing the panels, if only briefly, in this ostensibly public space – a place where you can walk off of the Thames to discover the literal fabric of peoples’ lives – this exhibition succeeds in bringing over 350 lost lives into view whilst prompting us to consider the continued impact of HIV and AIDS. In 2023, according to the National AIDS Trust, there were over 100,000 people receiving HIV care in the UK.
While access to antiretrovirals has drastically improved outcomes – HIV is no longer a death sentence – there are still large sections of the global population that are unable to access vital healthcare. Now, as then, lives are being needlessly lost: a sad reminder of the quilt’s enduring importance. Every piece of fabric painstakingly selected, tested, placed and cut. Every image, traced or transferred, chosen with care. Every stitch, an act of love. You’ll always be with me Keith, now and always.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display at the Tate Modern from 12th – 16th June. For more information about the quilt, please visit AIDS Quilt UK.
By Troy Fielder
The Camera 