Quilt n.16 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
The project was born in San Francisco in 1987 from an idea of the activist Cleve Jones. Since the early 1980s, many people died of AIDS, not receiving funerals due to social stigmatization and governmental indifference to the disease.
Quilt n.26 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
Quilt n.27 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
After losing his partner himself, Jones gathered numerous volunteers who started the project, allowing friends and family to commemorate their loved ones, making blankets on which thoughts and drawings were imprinted.
Each piece of fabric was joined together to form a single large blanket, as a message of energy and solidarity.
Quilt n.32 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
From San Francisco the project extended to other major US cities such as New York and Los Angeles, bringing a significant number of blankets to the foundation's headquarters.
Quilt n.27 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
Quilt n.37 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
The first and huge blanket was displayed in Washington D.C. on 11 October 1987 in front of the White House on the occasion of the national march for gay rights. The blanket consisted of 1920 fabric panels and covered an area equal to two football fields.
Almost 10 years after its conception, in October 1996 the blanket was displayed in front of the Washington Capitol and counted 38,000 panels, [4] which, once extended, covered a territory equal to 20 football fields, where the names were written of over 70,000 people who died as a result of AIDS.
The notable increase in the panels, testified to the still high number of victims but also new social awareness on the disease.
Quilt n.5 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
Over the years, the project has expanded worldwide raising awareness and spreading the message that the disease is not a problem that affects only certain minorities but is a global problem, which can affect men, women and children, without distinction from social and cultural extraction.
Quilt n.20 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
Quilt n.9 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt in Italy thanks to Ursula Barzaghi who, together with ASA - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS Onlus in Milan, begins to collect the Panels and exhibits the first cover in 1990 in front of the Scala in Milan.
Quilt n.31 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
ASA Onlus has since been the Italian referent of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and as such it guards the blankets, assembles them and exhibits them every year on the occasion of the world day for the fight against AIDS.
Quilt n.27 (20th Century) by Collective WorkA.S.A. Onlus - Associazione Solidarietà AIDS
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