The UK AIDS memorial quilt is going on display at London’s Tate Modern

A giant quilt created to remember the people who died in Britain during the AIDS epidemic will go on display at London’s Tate Modern later this year. This is the first time the giant blanket will go on show at a major British cultural institution. 

Made in the 1980s, the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt was created at the height of the epidemic to raise awareness and remember the people who lost their lives to the illness. The sewing project, organised by Scottish activist Alistair Hume, was inspired by the 1987 US AIDS Quilt.  

After being displayed in the late ‘80s and early ’90s the British quilt was put into storage. It was last showed in London in 2021 at the European AIDS conference at the ExCeL centre. 

The enormous blanket is made up of 42 12 foot by 12 foot panels, each comprising eight smaller panels. The small panels are six foot by three foot, size used because it represented the average size of a grave plot. Each panel represents an individual who died of AIDS at the height of the epidemic, representing around 384 people from around the UK. By the end of 2011, 20,335 people diagnosed with HIV had died in the UK.

From June 12-16 2025 visitors will be able to see the quilt at the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Fashion critic Charlie Porter, who helped organise the exhibition, said being in the presence of it was a ‘humbling experience’. 

Porter told the Guardian: ‘There is a precedent of placing the quilt in iconic locations to really send the message home about HIV/Aids, and in the UK it was laid out in Hyde Park and there’s nowhere more iconic in the UK than the Turbine Hall.’

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