00:00I'm Siobhan Lanigan and I'm one of the people who looks after the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt amongst a partnership
00:06of seven charities.
00:07My name's Andrew McMillan, I'm a poet and writer who's originally from this area, from Barnsley, so I was asked
00:13to write something in response to this new exhibition of the quilt.
00:16The AIDS Memorial Quilt was created in the mid-1980s through to the mid-1990s and that was at a
00:25time when an HIV diagnosis almost inevitably led to an early death for people who were affected back then.
00:33And so this quilt was a response to that. It was a response to the loss of all the young
00:39lives mostly that were taken too soon and the loved ones and family members, communities, sisters, cousins, brothers, lovers, aunts,
00:50everybody wanted to express their grief at the loss of their loved one and to celebrate their lives.
00:58Because at that time, there was a great deal of negative stigma attached to an HIV diagnosis.
01:05It's a project that I'd known about in its American incarnation and then had really kind of known a little
01:10bit about here, I think, and then really kind of come to my attention, as it did for a lot
01:14of people here, I think, when it was in the Tate in London and for the first time all these
01:19kind of panels were laid out and people, I think a new generation, really got to understand them and get
01:25to know them.
01:26And then it was Sharon that made contact with me and just asked if I would, if they could commission
01:31me to write a poem to kind of, I guess, be read at the reading of the names on the
01:37Saturday, which is always an incredibly moving part of when the quilts are anywhere.
01:42And then I did what I always do, which is say yes, and then begin to worry about being up
01:48to that task and kind of meeting the incredibly important moment that these quilts and this exhibition in Wakefield represent,
01:56I think, and try my best to meet that moment with words and with something that I might be able
02:03to write.
02:03And with a welcome. It's such a lovely welcome to Wakefield and to Yorkshire to have a poem specially written
02:09for the occasion.
02:12And the first time the quilt has come out of London in its full glory is here in Wakefield.
02:18So we're delighted that we're able to do that and reach a whole new set of people who wouldn't necessarily
02:24get a chance to see it.
02:25You just get a sense of each individual life, that whatever age they died at, and the dates on these
02:32quilts are some of the most moving things, but whatever age they died, that it was too young.
02:37One of the great things is that the quilt is completely free for people to come and see here at
02:42Wakefield Exchange, and it runs through right until the end of the day on Sunday.
02:48And during the weekend, there are lots of activities that people can get involved with.
02:52It's not a static artwork that will just sit on walls or on floors in our case. It's a living,
02:58ongoing project.
