ABSTRACT
To commemorate the lives of people who have died from AIDS and draw attention to the cause of fighting the disease, the NAMES Project organized the creation of the vast AIDS quilt. Mourners create individually designed, idiosyncratic panels to memorialize their loved ones. These standard-size panels are then periodically displayed in a prominent place, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Quilt blocks contain a blank space where visitors can write directly on the panel to express their own feelings about the person who died, the AIDS epidemic in general, or anything else that a visitor thinks is appropriate. Today the quilt has become so large-with more than forty thousand panelsthat it is no longer possible to display the entire project at one location.
