June 26, 2012
Kennedy Center to Display Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt
Mark Thompson READ TIME: 1 MIN.
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will display seven panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt June 27 to July 26 in the South Gallery.
The seven arts-related panels will include tributes to Alvin Ailey, Rudolf Nureyev, Howard Ashman, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and more. The Quilt now consists of more than 48,000 panels representing the lives of 94,000 individuals taken by AIDS, sewn by more than 100,000 friends and family members.
The Center is one of more than 50 venues across the Washington metropolitan area to host the 54-ton Quilt during the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) this summer. The exhibition at the Kennedy Center will be open and free to the public, no tickets required, from 10am to 11:30pm.
The Quilt began with a single 3' x 6' foot panel created in San Francisco in 1987. Today, The Quilt is the largest piece of ongoing community art in the world. Its personally sewn panels come from every state in the nation, from every corner of the globe.
Sections are continuously on display across the country in schools, churches, community centers, businesses, corporations and a variety of other institutional settings, all with the purpose of making the realities of HIV and AIDS real, human and immediate.
To date, more than 15 million people have seen The Quilt at tens of thousands of displays throughout the world.
For a listing of all the venues scheduled to display panels of The Quilt this summer, go to www.Quilt2012.org
A long-term New Yorker and a member of New York Travel Writers Association, Mark Thompson has also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. The author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE, he has a PhD in American Studies and is the recipient of fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His work has appeared in numerous publications.
