New York City, NY
United States
420 West 45th Street International AIDS Memorial Quilt since 3 August 1998
400 names
The International AIDS Memorial Quilt was born in 1998 when sections were displayed at the Gay Games display in Amsterdam's Vondelpark. Deny de Jong of the NAMES Project Netherlands and Jeff Bosacki of the then New York chapter of the NAMES Project joined forces in using the Quilt to bring a global perspective to HIV/AIDS. While Mr. de Jong concentrated on the Vondelpark exhibit and bringing dozens of foreign countries together, Mr. Bosacki started facilitating quilt panelmaking in Sub-Saharan Africa and their first Quilt display for the World Parliament of Religions in Cape Town 1999.
In 2000, the International Quilt came back to Africa for the International AIDS Conference in Durban. In 2001, the Caribbean came into focus for panelmaking as well as HIV/AIDS related conferences on the American continents: on African-Americans in New York, on Latin America in Philadelphia and Miami, and Caribbean in Havana. Year by year, the International Quilt was growing by entrustment of some national sections.
In order to secure its global projects, the New York chapter became the International AIDS Prevention Initiative (IAPI) in 2004. The national quilts are now entrusted to Global Quilt, an organization formed by Mr. de Jong and Mr. Bosacki the same year. Countries who have contributed to the International AIDS Memorial Quilt: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Many of these Quilt blocks are rotated on a regular basis.
The International Quilt continued to enrich the Gay Games. IAPI/Global Quilt took on their first World Tour 2004/2005 in Bangkok on the AIDS Conference, continuing with portions of the International Quilt to Jamaica, Haiti, New York, Moscow, Berlin, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Melbourne, and finishing in Washington, DC.

Global Quilt