The Thacher Gallery at the University of San Francisco Presents ‘Stitching Communities and the AIDS Memorial Quilt’
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 28, 2022) – The Thacher Gallery at the University of San Francisco (USF) presents ‘Stitching Communities and the AIDS Memorial Quilt’, on view from December 1, 2022 through February 17, 2023 in the Thacher Gallery on the USF campus.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt stands as an enduring monument to love, loss, and the power of art to bring communities together. Started in a storefront on Market Street in San Francisco’s Castro District in 1985, the Quilt is now celebrated as the largest community arts project in the world: a poignant and visually arresting memorial to those who have died—and are still dying—of AIDS around the globe.
In-person opening events will take place on Thursday, December 1, World AIDS Day, including an exhibition walk-through from 4:00 – 4:45 p.m. in the Thacher Gallery, followed by a moderated panel discussion featuring AIDS Quilt founder Cleve Jones from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. in Xavier Auditorium, located in Fromm Hall on the USF campus.
‘Stitching Communities and the AIDS Memorial Quilt’ features five blocks of the Quilt, as well as related archival objects from the collection of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. Together, they showcase the early history of the AIDS epidemic, and the continued power of the Quilt to memorialize, celebrate, and unify. By examining themes of togetherness and intimacy, the queer tradition of craft, communal empathy and action, and sense of place, the exhibition highlights how art and memory-making through craft can serve as a powerful form of creative individual and collective resilience during times of loss and social marginalization.
‘Stitching Communities and the AIDS Memorial Quilt’is presented by USF’s Master of Arts in Museum Studies Curatorial Practicum class led by Professor Kate Lusheck.
About the Thacher Gallery at the University of San Francisco
The Thacher Gallery is a public art gallery located in USF’s Gleeson Library where creativity, scholarship, and community converge. The exhibitions in our 25th anniversary season (2022-23) will explore memory through textile and mixed media artworks. The gallery is free and open to the public daily from 12:00 – 6:00 p.m. USF pandemic protocols required. Located at 2130 Fulton Street. (415) 422-5178.
About the University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco is a private, Jesuit Catholic university that reflects the diversity, optimism, and opportunities of the city that surrounds it. USF offers more than 230 undergraduate, graduate, professional, and certificate programs in the arts and sciences, business, law, education, and nursing and health professions. At USF, each course is an intimate learning community in which top professors encourage students to turn learning into positive action, so the students graduate equipped to do well in the world — and inspired to change it for the better.
