UK AIDS Memorial Quilt
Open Wednesdays to Fridays 12pm to 5pm
Saturdays 12pm to 6pm
Sundays 12pm to 5pm
Preview Friday 11 September 7-9pm
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will be exhibited in full in Scotland for the first time. At Tramway, the Quilt will be displayed alongside archival material which traces the Scottish roots of the project, as well as the documentary film There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt represents over 600 people lost to HIV and AIDS in the UK. It is part of the world's largest community art project, begun in the USA in 1985 by activist Cleve Jones to commemorate friends, family and loved ones lost to AIDS. In the late 1980s, Scottish activist Ally Van Tillo began coordinating the UK Quilt, as others were doing around the world.
Every panel in the Quilt was made by someone who loved the person it remembers. These were people with full lives, passions, friendships and families. At a time when AIDS stigma meant many died unnamed and unmourned in public, the Quilt was an act of defiance. It said these people existed and mattered – and they will not be forgotten.
The UK Quilt consists of 335 individual panels, most measuring 3ft x 6ft, symbolic of a typical grave plot. Individual panels were stitched together to form larger blocks measuring 12ft x 12ft - each one showing both the sheer scale of loss, and the individual humanity of every life it holds.
Shown in public spaces, the Quilt became an act of remembrance, protest and celebration - a way to force people to look, and to demand action when governments would not.
Seven UK HIV support charities formed the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership in 2014 to conserve and display the quilt. Today it stands as an important reminder of those who were lost and of the fact that HIV and AIDS continue to affect people and communities today.
Medical advances have transformed HIV yet the social barriers remain and access to treatment and prevention still varies dramatically, both here in the UK and across the globe. The Quilt has always held space for everyone affected by HIV, whatever their treatment or status. Everyone deserves support to live as well as possible, whether that's medical, emotional or financial. Stigma, inequality and a lack of awareness mean the fight against AIDS is still not over.
Public Programme
A public programme will run alongside the Quilt display, including a series of events curated by Glasgow based artist and researcher Steven Grainger:
The traditional Reading of the Names ceremony will be followed by a moment of noise and a blessing from the Haus of Nunsense (the Scottish chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence), and a performance from Glaswegian women's drumming ensemble SheBoom, marking the Quilt's arrival in the city. (Saturday 12 October)
Cleve Jones (who conceived the Quilt in San Francisco in 1985) will be in conversation with Ian Van Tillo, who worked on the UK Quilt from its earliest days in Leith alongside its founder, his husband Ally Van Tillo, and Siobhán Lanigan, chair of the Partnership that brought the Quilt out of storage. (Sunday 13 September)
John Binnie will reflect on his 1987 play Killing Me Softly, alongside original cast members performing extracts of the play, and a candid discussion of how Scottish theatre responded at the height of the AIDS crisis — performed at the time in theatres, housing estates, unemployed workers' centres, hospices and "Safe Nookey Nights". (Sunday 13 September)
Wendy Cooper of Waverley Care will introduce a screening of Stephen Bennett’s landmark documentary Choose Life: Edinburgh’s Battle Against AIDS, examining Edinburgh’s experience of the emerging AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. (Thursday 17 September)
A dedicated day of events from LGBT community heritage organisation OurStory Scotland features them building a collective record of Glasgow's HIV and AIDS history and talking about more than two decades of collecting, archiving and presenting the lived experiences of Scotland's LGBTQ+ communities. (Saturday 19 September)
A day of events from AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) will shine a light on their work, including that of the Edinburgh and Glasgow chapter, and include film screenings, and a talk and a workshop led by activist Dan Glass. (Sunday 20 September)
Thursday Night at the Vic, a fundraising party at Glasgow School of Art Students Association curated by HuussH and Colin O'Hara (Hot Mess) at The Vic & Assembly, conjures the irrepressible joy of living, and dancing together – with all funds raised supporting future showings of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt. (Thursday 24 September)
A programme of creative workshops will also invite participants to explore the Quilt’s histories and themes through making, led by Eothen Stearn, Terrence Higgins Trust and the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership:
Textile Memory Patch – 18 September
Threads of Resilience – Stitching Stories for the Future - 26 September
Making a Quilt Panel - 4 October
Scroll down to the end of this page for picture links to all events and booking information
Credits
The AIDS QUILT UK is presented by Tramway and made possible with Creative Scotland funding. The exhibition features a display of archives supported by Lothian Health Services archive, University of Edinburgh Library.
Images, from top:
Courtesy of Waverley Care
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall 2025 © Tate Photography (Kathleen Rundell)