SFO, officials honor AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibition in remembrance of lives lost to disease
The quilt paints countless words, a depiction of love and remembrance. Each panel is a tribute to a lost loved one.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Community members and local leaders came together Friday for a Pride Month reception commemorating San Francisco International Airport Museum's AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibit.
The quilt paints countless words, a depiction of love and remembrance. Each panel is a tribute to a lost loved one.
Now, some of the 50,000 panels of the AIDS memorial quilt are on display at one of the busiest airports in the country.
MORE: Over 3,000 quilt panels displayed at SF's Golden Gate Park honoring those lost to AIDS
The exhibit at SFO is part of a yearlong display to honor those lost to the AIDS epidemic and to celebrate the activism and community that's emerged from it.
"It's very important history that's local to San Francisco," said Daniel Calderon, curator of exhibitions at SFO Museum. "The quilt started here in 1987 returned just a few years ago."
MORE: AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibit at SFO honors lives lost, raises awareness to ongoing epidemic
The panels have been on display at SFO since February. Officials marked June to celebrate and honor the exhibition at the museum.
"It's so important to do this during Pride Month, because the quilt is so deeply rooted in the community here," Calderon said. "There was just so much misinformation, so much discrimination against the disease and against the community, and since then the quilt is just an example of how community can come together to really overcome adversity, to really make a change, to educate people."
MORE: FDA approves the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV
On hand for the special ceremony was Cleve Jones who envisioned the quilt back in 1985.
"In 1985 at a candlelight vigil held in memory of Harvey Milk, Cleve had a vision, a way to mark the overwhelming loss of life due to AIDS," San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said during his remarks at the reception. "Two years later, he stitched the very first panel in honor of his friend Marvin Feldman."
MORE: HIV was first reported 43 years ago, and advocates say there is still more work to do
The exhibit is open to all travelers and visitors, no boarding pass required. Officials say it's a chance to educate and inspire.
"It's coming home to the city where it was born, where it will welcome people to the city that led the way during the AIDS crisis," Lurie said.
The exhibit is up through next March, located in the International Terminal before security and is free to all airport visitors.
