Amsterdam
Netherlands
Eerste Helmersstraat 17 Dutch AIDS Memorial Quilt since 1 December 1988
350 names
Dutchman Gart Zeebregts got in 1987 involved as a volunteer of the NAMES Project in San Francisco. As their International Outreach Coordinator he wanted the AIDS Quilt to be better known in Europe and together with initiator Cleve Jones he presented quilt blocks on the Forth World AIDS Conference 1988 in Stockholm.
In May 1988, Zeebregts passed three quilt panels, all made by himself, to Jeannette Kok, then staff member of the Association for People with AIDS (BMA), the predecessor of the current Dutch HIV Association. The Dutch AIDS Memorial Quilt was born.
On December 1st, 1988, the first World Aids Day, eight quilt panels were unfolded on Dam Square in Amsterdam. Since that time, the quilt is shown each year on AIDS Memorial Day in May and on the National AIDS Conference on World Aids Day. In the beginning, the cloths of remembrance were also used for education in schools.
On the World Aids Conference 1992 in Amsterdam, five Dutch quilt blocks, each containing eight panels, were exhibited accompanied by blocks from all over the world. Since then Dutch quilt blocks traveled along on European Quilt Tours which ended at the Gay Games 1998 in Amsterdam. In the following two years, the Quilt found its way to various displays in the Netherlands.
In 1998, for the first time parts of the Dutch Quilt were exhibited in a museum: the Zoetermeer Historical Museum. Regularly, new museums are added; so the Dutch Quilt was shown in Museum Twentse Welle, Historical Museum de Bevelanden, the Frisian Museum, the Bonnefanten Museum, the Noordbrabants Museum, the Jewish Museum en the Tropenmuseum.
After a calm period, since 2006 new quilt panels are made and sometimes whole quilt blocks are designed. In total, 218 panels are worked into 29 quilt blocks (as of May 2011).

NAMENproject Nederland