Last year, a transgender high school student visiting the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History’s Queer Santa Cruz exhibit expressed interest in seeing the AIDS Memorial Quilt. So the MAH collaborated with the National AIDS Memorial and Santa Cruz Diversity Center to host the new show, Threads of Love: The AIDS Memorial Quilt.
“We’re hoping to create an experience where the community could be surrounded by the quilts,” says Meggie Pina, well-being programs director for the Diversity Center. “We’re also having youth making art to contribute to the exhibit. The art work is stitched together with love, resistance and collective strength.”
The collection consists of 56 panels that measure 3 feet by 6 feet and have more than 50 names personalized on them. Community members were able to request panels that were designed as tributes to local relatives who died of the disease. The exhibit, which runs May 30 through June 29, celebrates not one but two significant milestones.
In 1985, San Francisco activist Cleve Jones conceived of the quilt as an opportunity for people to remember loved ones they had lost to the pandemic. It was unveiled for the first time two years later at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (Today, the quilt has roughly 50,000 panels dedicated to 110,000 people and weighs 54 tons. It’s the largest piece of community folk art in the world.)
In 1984, the Santa Cruz AIDS Project formed to serve men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS in the area. The nonprofit brought the quilt to the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in 1989. Of the quilt’s 9,000 panels at the time, 340 panels were displayed, 20 of which were designed by Santa Cruz residents.
AIDS was a defining period for the gay community in the 1980s and ’90s, back when a positive diagnosis was a death sentence. Younger generations living in the shadow of the epidemic might lack knowledge about the virus’ history and transmission. So the Diversity Center will have HIV/AIDS information and prevention resources available throughout the exhibit. The center has also teamed up with seniors and students across Santa Cruz County to create the Queer Liberation Quilt, which is composed of hand-painted quilt blocks sewn together with red ribbon, the international symbol of AIDS awareness.
“We want the youth to learn more about the local history in Santa Cruz,” Pina says. “They’ve shared with us that a lot of their peers don’t know about the HIV/AIDS crisis, so that history portion in the exhibit is kind of geared for the younger generation.”
Screening throughout the course of the show will be Never the Last Love Letter, a documentary directed by Terez Kilpatrick. Using archival footage and interviews with activists, doctors and survivors, the movie explores how HIV/AIDS affected Santa Cruz’s LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s.
“This project is a call to action of the past, but it’s also a bold call to action for the future,” Pina says. “It speaks to the power of art and the demand for justice and to inspire a more liberated future. I really hope that young people will have a chance to connect with the quilt. I also hope that people get a chance to learn about the Santa Cruz AIDS Project and the amazing grassroots organizing that was done to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and the personal sacrifices of those who fought to save lives. I hope that we’re able to honor all the people that have died, and that we’re able to look toward a world where there’s a vaccine.”
Santa Cruz Pride Week
Threads of Love and a concurrent exhibit—Out of the Closet and Into the Streets: 50 Years of Santa Cruz Pride—run May 30–June 29 at MAH, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. The museum is open Thursday-Sunday; admission is $8-$10.
The shows are part of Santa Cruz Pride Week, which also includes the following events:
May 29, 6:30pm, Kuumbwa. A Queer Evening in May, featuring local musical talent.
May 30, 6:30pm, MAH. Generations of Pride Dinner and Dancing Through the Decades. Provides a first look at the two MAH exhibits.
May 30, 4:20-8pm, Town Clock Plaza. Dyke Trans March.
May 31, 8pm-1am, Rio Theater. Queerlantis: A Golden Jubilee.
June 1, 11am-4pm, Downtown Santa Cruz. Pride Parade and Festival. Interfaith service at 9:30am; parade at 11am; speeches at noon, followed by music from SambaDa and Robbie Fitzsimmons.
For more details, visit santacruzpride.org.
