Quilt Fights

According to the New York Times article "Fight Over QUilt Reflects Changing Times in Battle Against AIDS" published on Januaray 31, 2007.

Mr. Cleve Jones is "locked in a legal tug of war" with the AIDS Memorial Quilt's caretaker, the Names Project Foundation, over the custody of 35 of its 6,000 panels. The AIDS Memorial Quilt was started 20 years ago. The Quilt was originally a painting of a friend who had died from the AIDS disease.

In the last 20 years "the quilt became the largest piece of community folk art in the world, a 54-ton collage affixed with the names of 91,000 victims of AIDS, a tapestry of greif that was one of the eraliest and most effective tools in raisng awareness of the disease."

The legal dispute is about the small swatch of the quilt that he contributed and also the "changing smybolism and puropose of one of the most recognizable symbols of the AIDS crisis as the crises itself has changed." The problem is that the fight agaisnt AIDS and its symbols has changed and that some people are beginning to believe that there are other probelms that need focus and awareness on other than AIDS. While others think that the quilt needs not be changed because it has done so much work and is already a two decade long symbol of the struggle agaisnt the disease.

I think that the AIDS problem is still incredibly dangerous and needs to remain a big topic of awareness.