A Tapestry of Love: Echoes of Loss, Voices of Hope

AIDS Memorial Quilt Display to Honor World AIDS Day 2025

Western North Carolina AIDS Project (WNCAP), the National AIDS Memorial, Campaign for Southern Equality, and Revolve Gallery are partnering together to bring 6 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Asheville as part of the Community Display Program.

The Quilt panels will be on display from 9 AM to 6 PM at Revolve Gallery on Riverside Drive from December 1st through December 13th. The display is free to the public, with any donations received supporting the mission and work of Western North Carolina AIDS Project.

“We are honored to work together with the National AIDS Memorial to bring the Quilt to our community and share its stories of hope, activism, healing, and remembrance,” says Chris Winebrenner, WNCAP Community Resource Coordinator. “The Quilt sections on display connect the story of AIDS directly to the work we do to provide services, educate, and raise greater awareness about HIV today. The Quilt offers an important reflection about the tremendous loss of life, allowing us to remember those we’ve lost, ensure their lives are never forgotten, and provide hope for the future.”

Throughout the ongoing AIDS crisis, more than 700,000 lives have been lost in this country to HIV/AIDS. Today, HIV is on the rise, particularly among young people, communities of color, and in the Southern United States. Quilt displays are used to raise greater awareness about the story of AIDS, and prevention, treatments, and resources available within the community.

“The issues our nation faces today- social injustice, health inequity, stigma, bigotry, and fear - are the same issues faced throughout four decades of the AIDS pandemic,” says John Cunningham, CEO of the National AIDS Memorial. “The Quilt is a powerful teaching tool that shares the story of HIV/AIDS, the lives lost, and the hope, healing, activism and remembrance that it inspires.”

WNCAP worked together with the National AIDS Memorial to curate the selection of Quilt panels for display, and the show will feature special panels requessted by WNC residents, making the exhibition not only socially and historically significant but also very personal and meaningful for our local community.

The Quilt was created in the ‘80s during the darkest days of the AIDS pandemic by gay rights activist Cleve Jones. While planning a march in 1985, he was devastated by the thousands of lives that had been lost to AIDS in San Francisco and asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died. Jones and others stood on ladders taping these placards to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt, and inspired by this sight, Jones and friends made plans for a larger memorial. In 1987, a group of strangers began gathering in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and later that year, nearly 2,000 of its panels were displayed on the National Mall in DC.

Today, the Quilt has grown to more than 50,000 panels, with more than 110,000 names stitched within its fabric. It weighs 54 tons, stretches more than 50 miles in length, and is the largest community-arts project in the world. The Quilt is now part of the National AIDS Memorial, which oversees its preservation, care, storytelling programs, and community displays. The Quilt can be viewed in its entirety and people can search for names on the Quilt at www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt.