Quilt unfolds the memories

TWELVE panels from an AIDS memorial quilt will be displayed in Melbourne’s west for the first time next month.

As part of Midsumma, Melbourne’s premier queer festival, the memorial panels will be displayed at the Louis Joel Arts and Community Centre in Altona and in Hobsons Bay’s libraries.

A DVD of all panels created in Victoria will be played on a big screen.

The Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt was formally launched on World AIDS Day — December 1, 1988.

Gordon Wilson, secretary treasurer of the Victorian AIDS Memorial Quilt Project, said the quilt was a lasting memorial to those who died early in the pandemic.

“The legacy of the quilt is to remember all the people who died from the disease up till the time of the anti-retrovirals. There’s no memorial to them except the quilt.

“A lot of families did not want anybody to know that their loved one had died of AIDS. So they said their loved one had died of ‘cancer’ or had ‘something wrong with their liver’ and it was all hushed up, but then they were quite prepared to make a quilt in memory of them.”

Louis Joel centre manager Jill Bilston said she and fellow co-operative member Tricia Salau had lost friends to HIV. 

“The AIDS memorial quilts are important, and I think our trip to Uganda — working in a country where six million people are HIV positive and whole villages are decimated — really brought it home to the Louis Joel Centre.

“I thought, let’s get the quilts out. Let’s bring them over to the west for the first time. Let’s have an exhibition with people’s stories and let’s show some video of the celebrations in New York’s Christopher Street, San Francisco, Melbourne and Sydney.

“And let’s have huge baskets of condoms to say, ‘Don’t ever forget you need protection because this is still a virus that is rampant’.”

The AIDS Memorial quilt will be on display on January 28 and 29 at the Louis Joel Arts and Community Centre, 5 Sargood Street, Altona. 

Nineteen events — held from January 13 to February 3 as part of Midsumma — will include a free sailing day, rainbow families’ storytime, youth dance party and GLBTIQ art exhibition.

Details: hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au/gowest