Bournemouth, England
United Kingdom
Pier Approach, Lower Gardens Dorset AIDS Memorial since 1 December 2010
400 names
The idea for the memorial came from DAMSET’s founder and Chairman, Andrew Armstrong when he returned to England after an absence of 25 years and took up residence in Bournemouth, a pleasant resort town on the south coast.
Andrew had been living in San Francisco for the previous seven years where he had studied at the San Francisco Art Institute as a mature student. One of the areas he was particularly interested in was site-specific art projects. He was also actively involved as a volunteer in fundraising events such as the annual San Francisco AIDS Walk.
On his return to England, he saw no evidence of any HIV/AIDS awareness-raising activities, either national or local and decided to do something about it.
Andrew had identified a suitable wall in the centre of Bournemouth, owned by the local water utility. It was ripe for improvement and he obtained permission from the company to clad the wall with ceramic tiles which were to be designed by local school children. He obtained a small grant from the Borough of Bournemouth and another from the National Lottery fund which enabled DAMSET to engage a local digital artist to run workshops in local schools where each student would design a tile to commemorate a person who had died from AIDS in the county. The over 400 images were either hand or computer generated and entered on a data base from which the tiles were commercially manufactured. Further funding was raised from official and private sources.
The memorial was designed by Andrew and was inaugurated on World AIDS Day, 2010 with media coverage all over the south of England. It receives special attention on World AIDS Day each year but is a constant reminder to the thousands of people who pass it each year.

Dorset AIDS Memorial Schools Educational Trust (DAMSET)