UK AIDS Memorial Quilt goes on show in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall

From today until 16 June 2025, Tate Modern’s visitors have a rare opportunity to see the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt. Begun around 1989, this vast work consists of 42 quilts and 23 individual panels which represent 384 individuals affected by HIV and AIDS. Laid out in a grid across the entire floor of the Turbine Hall, echoing how it has previously been shown outdoors, it continues to raise awareness of the ongoing AIDS pandemic.

The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt is one chapter of the largest community art project in the world. It began in the USA in 1985, when American activist Cleve Jones started inviting people to create textile panels to commemorate the friends, family and loved ones they lost to AIDS. These individual panels were sewn together to create larger quilts, which were then shown outdoors as a form of protest to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. In the late 1980s, Scottish activist Alastair Hume visited San Francisco, where he witnessed an early display of the quilt. When Hume returned home to Edinburgh, he began coordinating the creation and display of a UK version, as many others did around the world. One of its largest public showings was the ‘Quilts of Love’ display in June 1994 at Hyde Park Corner, London, presenting selected panels from the US and the UK, alongside sections created by fashion designers.

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. While antiretrovirals have made it possible to live with HIV, access to this medication still varies dramatically across the globe.

Siobhán Lanigan from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership said “The purpose of our partnership is to have the Quilt seen as often as possible in as many places as possible. The display in the Turbine Hall marks the largest showing of the UK Quilt in its history, reaching the biggest audience it has ever known. With every viewing, the names and the lives of all the people commemorated and all those who could not be named, are recognised, celebrated and brought out of the shadow of the stigma that is still associated with an HIV diagnosis today. Everything we can do to break down that stigma is of great value. This is one big step in that direction that can be built upon in future displays.”

Karin Hindsbo, Director of Tate Modern, said “It’s an honour to show the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt in the Turbine Hall. This feels like an apt place for the public to see it. Tate Modern is all about exploring connections between the global and the local – in this case, connections between an international activist network and a local creative community, as well as connections between a global pandemic and the individual lives it has affected. The quilt is an incredible feat of creative human expression and I know our visitors will find it a deeply moving experience.”

Health Minister Baroness Merron said “The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a powerful and moving tribute to those we’ve lost, and a reminder of the ongoing fight against HIV. Displaying it at Tate Modern will help raise awareness and challenge stigma. This government is fully committed to ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030. Our upcoming HIV Action Plan will focus not just on prevention and testing, but also on helping people live well with HIV, tackling inequalities and improving support for all affected.”

Throughout the course of the display, volunteers from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership will be working alongside Tate’s staff to welcome visitors and provide further information and support. Live readings of all the names featured on the panels will take place in the Turbine Hall at 11:00 and 14:00 on Saturday 14 June. Bakita Kasadha will open each reading with a poem, followed by a special performance from the London Gay Men’s Chorus at 12.45 and 16.00.

Accompanying the Turbine Hall display from 12 – 15 June, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (1995) - a previously unseen documentary about the 1994 display of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt in Hyde Park Corner, London - will premiere in Tate Modern’s Starr Cinema. Directed by Peter Martin and produced by Martin Cohen, Zowie Broach and Anna Powell, it features interviews with Quilt makers and organiser Alastair Hume, as well as attendees such as Michael Hutchence, Boy George, Neneh Cherry, Paul Rutherford, Rifat Ozbek, Sam McKnight and Judy Blame. Never publicly released at the time it was made and presumed lost for 30 years, this extraordinary social document captures the resolve and compassion of a community, 13 years after the first reports of deaths from AIDS. No other known film of the ‘Quilts of Love’ display is in existence.

Notes to Editors

This display is presented by Tate in partnership with UK AIDS Memorial Quilt and was initiated by Charlie Porter. It is curated by Elliot Gibbons, Collaborative Doctoral Researcher, Tate.

Find out more about the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt by visiting their website.

For Tate press requests, email pressoffice@tate.org.uk or call +44(0)20 7887 8730

To download press images, visit Tate’s Dropbox.

Listings information

UK AIDS Memorial Quilt
12–16 June 2025
Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG
Admission free
More information at tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern
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Readings of the names featured in the Quilt will take place in the Turbine Hall from 11:00-12:15 and 14:00-15:15 on Saturday 14 June 2025, opened with a poem from Bakita Kasadha.

Talk: An Evening of Remembrance: The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt

Starr Cinema, Tate Modern

12 June 2025, 19.00–21.00; £15 / £13.50 for Members / £5 for Tate Collective

Join an evening of conversation, remembrance and celebration as Tate welcomes the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt to Tate Modern. Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate, will be in conversation with writer, fashion critic and curator, Charlie Porter, who initiated the display, American activist Cleve Jones, who founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and Siobhán Lanigan of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership. The talk will explore the origins of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, its role in highlighting the devastating impact of HIV and AIDS from the 1980s onwards, and the many people it continues to memorialise and represent. Following the talk, there will be a special evening of drinks and music in the Corner bar.

Film: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Starr Cinema, Tate Modern

Thursday 12 June: 11.00, 12.00, 13.00, 14.00, 15.00, 16.00

Friday 13, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 June: 10.00, 11.00, 12.00, 13.00, 14.00, 15.00, 16.00, 17.00

Free, drop-in; Screenings last 48 minutes and are fully captioned

Tour: UK Aids Memorial Quilt Audio Description and Touch Tour

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

13 June 2025 from 15.00–16.30 and 16 June 2025 from 11.00–12.30; Free, with ticket

This tour of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will be delivered by audio describers from Tate’s Visitor Experience Team. It will include an opportunity to engage with the display through touch. Special guests from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership will join to give unique insight into the making process, origins of the quilt and share stories of the many people it continues to memorialise and represent.

Performance: Choral set from London Gay Men’s Chorus

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

Saturday 14 June; 12:45-13:00 / 16:00-16:15; ; Free, drop-in

Workshop: Quilt Making with Karina Thompson and Emma Duggan

Tanks Studio, Tate Modern

Saturday 14 June, 11.45-12.45 / 14:45-15:45; Free with ticket - email AIDS Quilt UK or speak to an AIDS Quilt UK volunteer at Tate Modern to book a place